Author Archives: June

I woke up before the alarm went off and I thought, “Wow! I slept all night without waking up, even after all the crap that happened yesterday! I don’t usually do that after a good day!”

I rolled over to shut off the alarm so I wouldn’t have to hear it, and it was 11:20 p.m.

I’d been asleep 20 minutes.

So.

Anyway, that was jarring. Yesterday, I mean. It was jarring and upsetting, and here’s the thing.

I really have no patience for anyone who’s going to try to tell me, “Oh, that was just a protest like all the Black Lives Matter protests.” or “That wasn’t us who stormed the Capitol. That was ANTIFA!”

I even saw someone who had the nerve to say, “Those people were DEMOCRATS with MAGA hats on!”

If you’ve read me for awhile, and who here hasn’t, really, you know for nearly 15 years now I’ve said, OK, let’s not be hysterical about “the other side.” After presidential elections, I always have us write comments where you have to say something good about the political side opposite yours, and snide remarks get deleted. I deleted an 86-year-old liberal—repeatedly—because she couldn’t play by the rules.

But if you still think what Donald Trump led people to do yesterday was “just a protest” or if you’ve now backed off and said, “Oh, that wasn’t us,” go away.

I mean it. Go away. I don’t want you on here. I don’t want you commenting. I don’t want to know you in real life.

You are a terrible person and I’ve had it. Go rethink your life choices.

I get that you’re angry. I get that you feel unheard. But you’ve taken a bad path.

If you’re a Republican who understands that Donald Trump is a dangerous person but you’re still conservative and proud of it, I’m absolutely fine with you being here. I welcome you here. I’m not only fine with people having opinions that differ from mine, I think it’s important that we all have different beliefs. If I don’t listen to other reasonable thoughts, how the hell am I going to learn anything?

But I’m not fine with people who are willfully ignorant and violent. What happened yesterday was un-American, and truthfully all that “I’m an American” stuff never meant that much to me except on September 11, 2001. But it’s become a hell of a lot more clear to me now just how important it is that we respect the electoral process and hey, here’s a thought. How about we act like grownups?

So, in the end, I didn’t sleep well last night. But I did decide that much. If you were OK with yesterday, my tolerance ends here. And while my tolerance for dumb, easily Google-able questions and advice has always been limited, my tolerance for other opinions and beliefs has always been a point of pride for me. I’ve always detested the vilification of people who differ from me. It’s always seemed absurd and shortsighted.

But this? This I won’t tolerate.

[shuffles papers, leaves dais]

I’m writing to you from the kitchen today; it looks so pretty that I just decided to be in here. I know I have to iron the ding-dang tablecloth. I keep thinking it and then thinking about other things that are more fun than dragging out the ironing board.

Also, I am sick of these cats. Who decided to get all these cats? [looks behind her accusingly]

First, Iris had to get special food for her stomach that costs $479 a bag. And everyone wanted to eat it. I fed her in a separate room, here in the kitchen on the little shelf in here. But every time I looked over there, someone was munching her kibble, which sounded dirtier than it is.

Finally, they were all so obsessed with her food that I just called the beleaguered vet.

“Would it be OK if that was just everyone’s food?” I asked him.

“Oh, sure! It’s just for easy digestion! But you need to keep Forest on his canned kitten food till he’s 1.”

So now that I’m spending 9 million dollars a day on special digestion cat food, what do you think everyone wants now? Is it the canned effing kitten food? All I’m ever doing is PULLING everyone BACK, like they’re fans at a Beatles concert, over that canned kitten food. Meanwhile,

Here’s Forest over at Iris’s food.

So that’s relaxing.

March. Forest will be a year old in March. Then we’re all eating that special stomach food, even me.

While I was typing this, I heard all sorts of barking and realized Edsel was still outside for his morning constitutional and the woman next door had let HER dog, Cinnamon, out. This led Edsel to lose his mind and bark at the fence, really low. I don’t mean his voice was really low like Barry White. I mean his SNOUT was really low and he was carrying on like a crazy person and meanwhile Cinnamon remained unimpressed on her side of the fence.

You should’ve seen it. It was like two sides of an emotional coin over there. Which just made a ton of sense. But maybe they were like those drama masks, only the masks were insane and stoic. It’s kind of like when the Tasmanian Devil is having a fit and Bugs Bunny just stands there.

Cinnamon is a large unflappable light-brown pit bull who likes me because I give her treats. She could not care LESS about Edsel, who considers Cinnamon the great enemy.

In general, I’d like to speak to the manager of these pets. Honestly, where IS the person in charge here?

Also, I’m running into the same problem every morning. I write this stupid blog from about 7:30 to 8:30. I mean, it doesn’t always take the whole hour, but that is the general time frame. And lately, every day I’m getting all sorts of texts and messages at that time.

I’ve gotten to the point where I’m just not answering them till 8:30. I tried the whole: “Talk to you at 8:30!” ploy and it seems to make no difference, so now I’m just pretending those messages aren’t there. Honestly if you give people an inch.

I JUST WANT MY TIME TO WRITE. And I know you’re gonna be all, “You can turn those off, JOOOON” but it’s a pain to turn it on and off all the time and my big fear is I’ll forget to turn it back on. As opposed to my charm, which I can’t seem to turn off.

And I know people just want to write while it’s on their mind but then I get that urgency feeling. It NAGS at me, that little message there. I’m tryina write you and yet my mind is telling me, Someone needs something. Someone NEEDS something!!!

Computers just made a lot of things worse. When my grandmother, the one I turned into, wrote her angry letters on her typewriter, it was just her and her typewriter. She had this special typewriter font that looked like cursive. If you got a typed letter in the mail on her special cursive font you were always filled with a kind of dread only a Grammy letter could produce.

Anyway, my point is, nowhere on the typewriter did she have any red 1s letting her know SOMEONE WANTS SOMETHING. DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION HERE.

I gotta go. It’s two minutes till it’s 8:30 and I’ve ignored 10 messages since 7:30 and I’m filled with angst.

Distractedly and barking at an indifferent Cinnamon,
June

I did not sleeeeeep. Did you ever do that thing where you keep waking up every dang hour? Why? And then at 7:00 when my alarm went off I was sleeping the deep sleep of the knee-deep knee-highs.

And yet, here I am. I couldn’t very well call into work tired. I feel like such a trouper. I feel like Olivia Walton, wanly peeling my hundredth potato, because for no discernible reason I found myself unable to resist John Walton and his long johns (not a euphemism) at least 7 times, which is why there is a need for 100 damn potatoes at lunch.

Speaking of my current references, I’ve come to realize I’ve lost touch with fashion. This is something I hadn’t counted on.

When I was in my 20s, there was nothing more important to me, and I used to judge people who weren’t atop all that is fashionable, people such as, say, Olivia Walton, who was atop John Walton at least 7 times.

Do you remember when we used to believe that? That our parents only did it the number of times that we had siblings? They hit the jackpot those three times then they gave it up forever!

Anyway.

Over Christmas, I showed my holiday decorations on the Facebook and admitted I have no visual skills. “If you see anything that needs moving, please tell me,” I said. What I meant by that was if anyone saw anything that needed moving, to tell me. See. Is what I meant. What I got instead was a lot of comment on what I’d chosen for decoration.

By the way, WORLD, the words “critique” and “criticize” are not interchangeable.

Anyway, while people were feeling free to criticize my decorations, I got a lot of, “Oh my god, why do you have tinsel?” “Take down the tinsel.”

Why do I have tinsel? My blood type is tinsel! I adore tinsel! Tinsel, to me, is shiny and retro!

But then I started looking around at other people’s decorations, like designer people, and realized, wow, no one has tinsel. Even regular people don’t have tinsel. Fekking no one has tinsel but me. I remember buying that tinsel with Alicia, my cleaning lady, fmr., during Christmas 2000-ish.

Anyway when it came time to put away decorations, I threw away my tinsel, despondent.

Then that night I watched an Instagram live of a very hip San Francisco person and she totally had tinsel twined up her staircase of her midcentury home. Ding-dang it.

And now vanities. I have my great-aunt’s vanity and I adore it. I really don’t use it; I do store socks on it but that’s about it. I put a sock in it, literally. Anyway then I saw a person on social media somewhere, and right there is my problem, saying how old vanities never sell anymore and I was all, reallllly? The same way my Uncle Leo says it when you tell him you spent more than $20 on a dress.

People don’t want vanities anymore?

So now I have a choice. I can have one of those old lady homes where everything is stuck in time, and when I die my house will go viral for being so old-fashioned. Or I can embrace the now and have one of those blank Ikea-looking homes everyone’s so crazy about.

I don’t really like either option.

I suppose my whole lewk is dated and I should be on one of those makeover shows and I hope it’s Queer Eye. I’m really less Jonathan and more Karamo. I’m sure this stuns you. That would be a great episode. “Did you see the one where that lady keeps trying to climb on Karaomo’s long johns?”

Anyway I don’t know how this happened, except that reading Glamor stopped appealing to me in about 2002. Is there even Glamor magazine anymore? I used to live for it, along with Elle. Oh, also, I got fat. So even if I wanted to stay on top of looking fashionable, it’d have to be the way Kate on This is Us is fashionable. Like, you put yourself in a swingy top and hope for the best.

I guess there’s also the whole part about who gives a shit? Why can’t I just have stuff I like and if I’m the old lady with the bun who owns Tweety Bird, who am I harming? But I just assumed I’d be less Tweety Bird’s mom and more Iris Apfel. And yet, here I am, saying, “No one uses TINSEL anymore?”

So.

I gotta go. My work’s Teams messaging center is all over the place with the exchanging of work and of vows and I hope of sausage if I play my cards right. See above re swingy top and calling it a day.

A la mode,
June

The holidays are over, unless you don’t count it till Washington’s birthday or something. And now we must return to the nonstop rush of working from our living rooms.

Have you ever seen that Progressive commercial where the woman is trying to watch TV and her boyfriend wants her to feel his forearms because he thinks they got bigger from twirling his sign? Then he picks up the giant sign and twirls it right in front of her face, and the whole time she’s trying to watch her TV show?

See, that there is why I will never NOT live alone, but also, that there is me every morning when I’m typing at you. Because Forest has a routine. And also a delicious poutine he wants to give you the recipe for.

I don’t know what it is, but the moment I open this laptop, he leaps up here and floops between me and the screen, and he never alights, so I’m constantly moving my head back and forth to SEE, and also he has no control of his CLAWNS yet, and yes I called them clawns. So he gleefully purr-paws just anywhere on me, purr-paws with abandon, cramming his razor kitten clawns on my arteries or eye sockets or fingertips or he doesn’t give a shit. He’s just so HAPPY.

Anyway, hi. How was everyone’s Christmas if you’re into Christmas, and new year, which you have to be into, I don’t care how unique you want to be. “Oh, I’m a vegan pagan who can smell numbers. We don’t have a new year.”

As I said I would, because as we all know I stick to my word like it’s glue, for NYE I did get a pupcake for Edsel and pie for me (lemon custard) at a place that closed at 5, a thing they didn’t tell me till like 2 minutes to 5:00. I’d placed the order to pick up later. 5:00 was one of the choices. They had all day to tell me.

Anyway, I made it, five minutes late but they were there anyway.

Then I watched the Laura Ingalls Wilder special on the PBS.

Back before the internet, when our lives were normal and we looked at each other during dinner, there was this weekly paper in Seattle called The Stranger. It’s probably still there. Anyway, in the back was a dating … I don’t even know what you’d call it. The personal ads? Like in the pina colada song?

I met several men using The Stranger’s dating … area, as men who advertised in there were my type. It never occurred to me to place my own ad, but it didn’t really deem itself necessary as I always had great luck just answering them.

I can no longer remember where I was going with this.

Oh! Yes I can. I remember one guy’s ad said that, in profile, he looked just like the “P” in the PBS logo.

That made me giggle for six hours, and I didn’t answer his ad, I forget why. He probably said he was a vegan pagan who tasted months, but now here I am an old woman who shall wear purple and I still giggle at that and I think we can all agree he was clearly my soulmate, if I believed such a disgusting thing existed.

It was all so exciting then. In my late 20s/early 30s. It felt like any day you could just leave the house and meet some dude, and many times I did. In my Seattle days, I met men all sorts of ways. Once on the ferry when some ferry worker was charmed by my wiles.

Once in a bar when I ripped the label off my beer, wrote my phone number on it, walked up to a man and handed it to him and walked out.

Once when a man came to have his taxes done at the accounting firm where I answered phones, and I told him fun places to go, as he was new in town. The next day he sent two (2) bouquets of flowers and an invitation to go to the places I’d suggested.

Once I was at a bar with my women friends, and hadn’t planned to go out at all that night so I’d put in little effort, and someone came in selling roses and a — he was cute now that I think about it — man bought one and had it sent over to me from across the room.

I did not give the time of day to any of these men except for the beer label one, as I had picked him out myself. In retrospect, they were probably all better fits than beer label guy, whom I dated for two years and had little in common with. He was the type of person who got the orange drink at McDonald’s.

Oh, except for that guy on the ferry. He was an even worse fit. He WORKED on the ferry, and they probably had rules about picking up women at work, but All This, who can resist. Anyway, I had at the time the latest accoutrements on my phone that most people didn’t: caller ID, call waiting, conference calling. I had these things because I made $22,500 a year answering phones at that accounting firm, so why not?

Anyway, that ferry guy called me to firm up our plans, but what he did not know is that I could tell he was calling me from a tanning place.

A tanning place. And I don’t mean he had some hides he needed to take care of.

So. He was not for me. Old George Hamilton ferry worker, over there.

I have no idea how I went from spinning Geico signs to missed romance from the ’90s, but these are the rides you take when you climb aboard old June, here.

Did you make any New Year’s resolutions? I did not. I figure it’s enough just to muddle through this whole … time until things get better. I don’t also need to learn inner peace and acceptance of men who go to tanning salons.

Oh, and speaking of inner peace, I did something stupid. I read online about this new year tarot reading you could give yourself, and it made itself seem like it wasn’t a “here’s what’s gonna happen this year” reading. It made itself seem like more of a “here is some guidance about the last year and what will help you in the year ahead” type of deal. Because I know myself and if I get any bad news it will ruin the whole year.

There were categories, and I was humming along beautifully. It said I felt trapped last year, like I was stuck. HAHAHAHAHA. Thanks. Funny. Then it said it was my own mind trapping me and not any outward things. HAHAHAHAHAHA. News flash. Anyway, it LURED me into the category of “health and well-being” and I

SHOULDA SKIPPED IT

because I know how I am. But I got the six of wands in reverse, which means some condition I thought was gone might rear its head this year.

Then I spent the entire night in a cold panic.

OK. First of all, they’re tarot cards. They’re supposed to be sort of fun and you sort of half don’t believe them at all. At least that’s how I see them. When they DO come true, you go, Holy shit, really?

Then also, have I ever had anything scary or serious? I have not. I have THOUGHT that I have had things that are scary or serious and they were not. So what could come back? Migraines. Plantar fasciitis. Maybe that thing I had. What was it? That thing that hurts that you get after chicken pox. Skillets or skittles or what the hell is it called?

You know, my hypochondria used to be this charming little quirk I had, but now it’s getting on my nerves and takes up about 70% of my thoughts. Like, now it really actually scares me. I find it annoying and wish I had something more entertaining to think about.

In summation, I wish I hadn’t read that card. Because I already ruined 2021. Only 361 more days to go.

I’d better go start complaining about the part where I have no work to do yet today. The thing about my job is I’m at the end, and this is very much the beginning, so I’m not surprised. And yet? I have to have something on my time sheet for right now, so you can see my conundrum.

Focusedly,
Juan

I just looked at my Facebook memories, and last year on this day I wrote, “Bring on 2020.”

That aged well.

I have to work today. I was convinced we had today off. Earlier in the week my coworker, Frapdorp, sent me something that’s “due to the client at noon Thursday” and in my MIND I was all smug. “We can’t SEND it Thursday because we won’t BE here Thursday.”

And then I thought back to the other nine New Year’s Eves I’ve worked at this place, and how I’ve always been, you know, at work, and right then I knew. Of course we had work on Thursday.

So the thing he sent me is done, really, but I just wanted to read through it one more time this morning before I sent it back to him, as I felt tired by the time I was done with it yesterday.

If I end up getting zero other work to do today I’ll just use my one remaining vacation day to use up my hours on my time sheet. Normally I could take that unused day and drag it over to next year, but as of next year, or as we say in my country, tomorrow, I get four weeks of vacation and what the heck do I need with four weeks and one day of vacation time? You know how I love travel.

Anyway, once my workday is done, whatever I end up doing with it, I have big plans to watch that Laura Ingalls Wilder special on PBS for my New Year’s rockin’ Eve. I think I can stream it, although I’m not positive because last night I tried to get it all set up but to do so would’ve required getting up off the couch and downloading the PBS app and there was no way that herculean effort was happening.

Right after work yesterday, I had Mario from Apple Care again, because yes, the thing that was broken about my computer that kept me from being able to just smoothly present you with an end-of-year slideshow is STILL BROKEN, and the engineers are having Mario and me do screen recordings of different scenarios, then we send those off to the engineers, then they say, “Hunh” and then have us record another scenario.

Meanwhile, I know all about Mario’s Christmas and his New Year’s plans and also what his girlfriend does for a living and so on.

Mario has the kind of taste in movies you’d expect from a young computer guy.

Anyway, I was drained last night, is my point, and did not want to get up to get my phone and download another goddamn app to see if in fact I can watch that Laura Ingalls Wilder special on PBS, which is a scenario Laura Ingalls Wilder herself faced often with grit and pioneering spirit. But if I can watch that special tonight I will never be sad again.

You know, she wrote for, like, her local paper or something and didn’t achieve real fame until she was 65. She wrote recipes and talked about how to raise chickens. Maybe complained about Almanzo and who can blame her. When she was 55 like me, she was just basically a paper blogger.

Also tonight, I am going to make a big pot of tea in the teapot my Aunt Mary got me and oooo, maybe I’ll go to the bakery here and get something really bad for me to eat as well. They have curbside service and they also have pupcakes. In all, I’m pretty delighted with these plans and now so is the Eds.

Usually at Christmas I go to Chris and Lilly’s, and on New Year’s Eve I go to The Other Copy Editor’s bed and breakfast for their big party. It’s a quieter year this year but I am OK with it for one year. If I’m still doing this at the end of 2021 Ima be in a mood.

I hope you all have delightful 2121s or whatever the next year is going to be. I’d love to keep talking but Forest has now plopped himself between me and the laptop and I can’t see anything but smokey fur and a smug black nose. It’s both cute and terrifically irritating.

Talk to you next year, or as they say in my country, cucumber.

There’s another blogger I admire who doesn’t actually blog anymore. She pretty much just keeps people apprised of her life via Instagram (@rebeccawooolf) and for all I know, Twitter. People seem to be Twittering a lot and I am not because I don’t need one more damn thing.

Anyway, her young husband died (suddenly and terribly) a few years back and then earlier this year she introduced us all to what seemed like a really nice man. We saw photos of him for awhile and then we went back to regularly scheduled photos of her life.

“What happened to Ted?” someone asked in her Instagram comments this weekend. “Did I miss something?”

Whenever I see that in my own comments, the “Did I miss something?” it sort of rankles and I can never pinpoint why. It just sort of makes it feel like … well. Let me just let the blogger I admire clear it up for me, as this is why I like her. She can articulate feelings I cannot.

“I’m responding to this because it’s one of all sorts of messages I’ve received over the last few months re my relationship(s) which include the words, ‘Did I miss something?’

“With respect, there are no missed episodes here. …I think it’s safe to assume that not posting about someone for 7+ months probably means what you think it means. Asking me for closure as it pertains to any relationship story I have opened on this platform insinuates an all-access pass.

“Everything I make public is a choice. Everything I make private is a choice. I would appreciate respect for the boundaries I draw between the two.”

@rebeccawooolf

Man, she’s good. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times she’s said things like that, where I’ve thought, THAT IS WHAT I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SAY and couldn’t form the thought. How come people can form the thought I cannot? Is it because they sit around thinking of it for longer and I eventually grab a 1960s Real Romance magazine or look at a cat or something?

Anyway I love this and have felt similar pressure to tell all when I just don’t want to.

Sometimes you feel great about the beginning of something but not great about the end. Sometimes the other person wants you to stop talking about them. Did you know AP Stylebook now lets you refer to one person as “them”?

Speaking of which, I’ve been binging this show I hate and much like my Hallmark movies I keep watching anyway because … I don’t know why and I wish Rebecca Woolf were always here to articulate for me why I do things.

Anyway, it’s this network show called A Million Little Things, and it desperately wants to be This Is Us and it isn’t. It’s entirely predictable and they have dialogue like, “Hey. [touches the person’s head] What’s going on up there?”

There is an attorney in the show, because there always needs to be one in every bad show, and of course they refer to her as “counselor” just in casual conversation sometimes. It’s that kind of show.

And yet I’m watching all 2949202030 episodes.

Because it’s Hulu, apparently you have to pay for it and watch commercials anyway, which sticks in my craw. And it’s like the same 5 commercials over and over again. For awhile it was this little girl in Food Lion who I wanted to punch directly in the face.

Right now some chick who’s married to Justin Bieber is advertising makeup. To show you how effective the advertising is, I don’t even know what kind of makeup it is and I have seen this ad approximately 467 times.

All I know is she keeps using “less” when she means “fewer.”

“Less ingredients.” “Less chemicals.” And I wonder, why are all the things that are important to me not the things that society values? Why does she get to be rich not knowing that it should be “fewer”?

I have to go. I must shower before work and I might call the vet. Iris has the irritable bowel disorder, as you may know from previous explosions. Anyway she’s having an episode, and while this is just part of the deal of having irritable bowel disorder, I want to call and see if there’s anything I can give her to make her feel better. This was a bad one. My poor girl.

I suspect she got into Forest’s kitten food, a thing I try to keep away from her but I might have screwed up.

Meanwhile, it’s been really cold here and it turns out cold is Forest’s jam. He adores cold. All he wants to do is be in it if it’s less than 30 degrees out.

That rock is like a block of ice. WHY would you want to put your bits on it? But I’ll worriedly look outside and he’s SLEEPING on the ICE. He’s delighted.

OK. Talk to you tomorrow. I know it’s that weird week so probably three people are reading me.

Hello, three people.

Luff,
Hoon

Yesterday was sort of on the busier side, as people are out, so I did get a lot of, “Hey, can you copy edit this, you … substitute, you” at work. I allegedly stop at 5:30, and at 5:33 I was just sending my last job to someone when

ring!

It was Mario from AppleCare. We have become so close. I thought maybe he just wanted to see how my weekend was.

Anyway, we did NOT fix the issue, STILL, but what we DID end up doing yesterday was transferring my end-of-the-year video to iMovie. It is not exactly how I want it to be, but by the time we once again tested my Photos app and then made the decision to transfer everything to iMovie and then we did this screen recording session so he can send my issue to a level even higher up than him (I am now dealing with Apple’s engineers), after all that, it was 7:30 or 8, I think.

So I did not care. I really no longer cared. My video was playable and that was all that mattered. I know most of you saw it last night on Facebook, but every time I put something on Facebook I think of the two people—Sadie and Pam, my mother—who are NOT on Facebook and I—oh! And The Poet. She is also not on Facebook.

So here. The three of you can see it too.

Now we have 9 more days in the year and what if something riveting happens to me and I have to redo the video? Am going to suspend self in amber so nothing happens.

As if I haven’t been doing that since March.

Once I finally got up from my computer last night (at one point I had to say to Mario, “I need to get up and feed Edsel and let him out.” Fortunately we’d already played Blu and walked at lunch. I’d done that in anticipation of it being the shortest day of the year) (Edsel and me. Not Mario and me), I stampeded outside to try to see the big “And” in the sky. There was supposed to be a conjunction in the sky last night. Jupiter and Saturn are mating or something and the next time this happens we will all be dead as nits.

Any time there’s a sky event I go into my backyard and see nothing. Not to mention some Neighborhood Watch YAHOO must’ve called the city because they came by and fixed the streetlights, so now it’s hard to see the stars. It was delightfully dark on our street for about a year.

Anyway, by the time I looked at my phone last night, I had about 42 messages from people saying, “There’s a star thing tonight” which of course I already knew but what is sad is they did not get to experience my “And in the sky” joke, which is right up there.

But The Poet left me this text, which I enjoyed.

Then I did that thing where I tried to go to sleep but I kept giggling at the thought of The Poet being Saturn.

Anyway, that sums up yesterday, the first day of the winter of our discontent. I have to go because someone asked if I could help with something and I said yes and now I see he has sent me 7 follow-up emails explaining the work and now I have the angina.

Luff,
June

Dear anyone who knows I am trying to give up the caffeine:

I’M GOOD ON TEA. THANK YOU. GOOD ON TEA.

I’m like that joke about the kid who was just a head (“Not another hat!”). You know what I might could do, is take the tea out of the boxes and just put the bags in that bowl. Why did that not occur to me till now when I saw them all crammed in there like chickens at the poultry plant?

But speaking of receiving things, I don’t know about you, but I am getting boxes galore lately, and I’m certain it’s fun to be a UPS or FedEx or postal delivery person this year. What a pain in the ass we all are. Mostly I am getting boxes of tea from well-meaning people. But yesterday I got an ENORMOUS box, bigger than my promiscuous college roommate’s, and I was pushing it over to the “things that are obviously Christmas gifts” pile but there was a little PICTURE of what it was inside, which Dear Box Designer: There’s this holiday, see, where we all surprise each other with gifts, see, and if you put a PHOTO of the gift, see …

Anyway, it was the desk chair I admired! For all this time, this whole work-from-home year, I’ve NOT worked at my desk because while my desk chair is vintage and charming and you know I like vintage and charming, it’s all wood all the time and sitting on it is like sitting in a church pew, so I opt for my leather “cowboy chair” (that’s how they marketed it at the same damn vintage place I got the uncomfortable wooden computer chair) and my work laptop, and while the cowboy chair is comfy and offers me beans in front of a campfire, I do find that I’m looking DOWN into the laptop all day, which can’t be good for m’neck, which as you know needs several rounds of $700 shots that I won’t go get. Because $700.

So I longed for a good desk chair so I could sit normally at a desk, but $$.

And then, lo, an angel of the — a good desk chair appeared on my porch, and I was all, Who SENT this? And just then Ned called.

“Ned!” I said. “I just got a desk chair in the mail!”

“Goddammit!” said Ned.

“???” I said.

“I sent you a desk chair,” he groused, “and now someone else has too.”

I never said that Ned was bright.

It turns out they told him it wouldn’t get here till January but here it is, here in NOT YET January, unless he’s right and two people sent me the same green chair and anyway here it is.

Isn’t it magnificent?

So today Ima work at my desk for the first time in 10 months of working at home and we’ll see how that goes.

Yes, I AM working this week. I’m not going anywhere so why not work? Things will either be berserk or so quiet I will organize my teabags. That’s how Christmas week usually — oh hang ON, someone just send me a work email at 8:16 a.m. Let me go see what THIS is.

…Oh. It was the thank you email. From someone who doesn’t yet know how I feel about the thank you email.

There’s no need to thank me for doing my job. There really isn’t. I mean, thank me with a raise, or a giant shout out at a big meeting. But don’t send me an email thanking me for sending the work. I’m not worried you “got it.” It’s email. You got it. If you didn’t, THEN YOU CAN EMAIL ME saying, “Hey, did you forget to copy edit that thing, you damp ham?”

Anyway, that’s how I feel about the thank you email. Eventually people know this because eventually I deliver that diatribe and I am a pleasure of life. I am a pleasure of work.

Some people email me to say, “I know you hate getting thank you emails but thank you!”

Sigh.

I realize I’ve become the old scary woman at work.

So that sums up the weekend, other than I ran out of canned kitten food, not that Forest is starving as he caught 1 vole, 1 small snake and 1 cute little field mouse this week. The rodents, he ate. The snake, he left. Thanks. Let me send an email: THANKS.

But I had these two large boxes, larger than my promiscuous college roommate’s, of kitten food on the shelf, and I just kept reaching in there for a can like it would last forever, like they were Everlasting Gobstoppers, and one day one box was empty, so I reached in the other and it had one can.

So I dashed over to Chewy, who might as well name themselves Juney, and ordered more cans TOOTSWEET, but they have yet to arrive because see above re everyone getting boxes. So this morning, for the first time since he got here in August, Forest found himself sans cans.

He has DRY food. He’s not STARVING. But oh, is he annoyed. I swear his FUR is drooping. He’s walking around with his head low. And every time I get up, he dashes to his bowl like I finally remembered. Like as soon as I put a can in his bowl he’s gonna email me, “thangsz!”

My ex-best-friend and I used to talk on the phone maybe 20 hours a day, and her husband, her now-ex-husband, who by the way I miss and who knew? Anyway, he would do this thing where he’d walk into the room she was in and half open his mouth and raise his eyebrows as if he were about to say something but got frozen in time by Endora on Bewitched. This was his not at all manipulative way of letting her know he wanted to say something to his wife who was on the phone 20 hours a day.

Anyway, that’s Forest right now. Any time I move, he’s got his insistent face on.

I feel TERRIBLE about this and as soon as his cans arrive I will plop one in a bowl whether it’s a mealtime or not.

Poor canless Joe Jackson.

Anyway I guess I’d better “go to work,” which means sitting here waiting for work. But in my good green chair. Which might be from Ned or maybe Ned and some other person at the same time.

Sensibly,
June

Honestly, I try not to get too attached to any of you because you are barn cats.

When I used to go visit the farm where my stepfather grew up, I’d be all into the cows and the chickens and the barn cats, saying hello to all of them and so forth. Then the next day I’d be all, “Hey, where’s that little orange kitty?”

“Cow sat on him.”

That’s how you guys are. I mean, you have the ability to just come and go. It’s the internet. It’s ethereal. I don’t know where you live. I don’t know what you look like, most of the time. If Paula H&B knocked on my door, I’d be all giving her a cool “Yes?” from behind my Ring app. I wouldn’t even go to the door.

It wasn’t like that at first. At first, when I realized someone was reading my blog, I got all friendly, pulled up a chair. There were long, impassioned emails (emails! quaint!) where we’d tell each other our stories, check in daily, ask how that job thing went or did that guy ever call.

Then one woman tried to steal Marvin.

And one woman just ghosted. Oh, that one killed me. I was one Boynton e-card from being someone I didn’t like over that one.

So I cloched myself. You know what I’d really like? Are more cloches. Like, to put a silver reindeer under at Christmas, or something gaudy under any other time of year. But they cost.

I digress, however.

I mean that I kept a bit of a distance between myself and any internet relationships I had, because they aren’t quite real, and because people come and go so quickly here. We’d all be chugging along, leaving comments and posting on Facebook and then someone here would say, “Hey, what’s happened to Framantha?” and I’d be all, “I don’t know. Cow sat on her?”

But despite that, despite being a gaudy reindeer under a cloche, sometimes I got attached to people anyway. Cheech was one of those people. And I didn’t even realize I had gotten attached. She’s just been here forever, day after day. I’ve come to count on her leaving a comment, or saying something on (Face)Book of June. Face the Nation of June. Fleecebook of June.

I digress, however.

She was as regular to me as the clouds or a mug of coffee. I knew she’d be there. She was part of the fabric of my day.

And just like that, barn kitty.

I dreamed of her all night. In one dream, she was fading away and waving at me. I know I had that dream because I was working on my end-of-year video till rather late, the one I tried to show you last night. When I export the video to my desktop it stutters and won’t dissolve from one photo to the next. It gets stuck. I’ve tried a million things to fix it and it won’t work. I have to call Apple Care, and while I cannot predict the future, signs point to Edsel being a letter U while I speak tersely on the phone later today.

Anyway, I’m sorry I don’t have my video ready for you but it really does get stuck on one picture for like 15 seconds. It’s not the end of the year yet so there’s not really a rush. I just said I’d have it and I don’t and what I really want to do is go to my desktop and bring Cheech back because she was a delight.

I’ll be here under my glass dome.

Love,
June

Today I learned that a longtime reader, Cheech, has died. It seems like she’s been here forever, with her funny comments and her good stories. I was talking with her just last week and all was well in her world. No one seems to know what happened.

The last time we talked, she was busy trying to help a family in need.

So because I’m sad, I did my end-of-year video. You all mean more to me than you know.

P.S. Because it’s 2020, the video turned out all wonky and so I have to redo it. But I stopped working on work things to post this tonight, so I will have to take down the video, work on work, then work on this video and repost in the morning.