It’s Monday morning, and I can’t remember what I did this weekend. Not in a John Lennon “I slept with so many Asian chicks who weren’t my wife” kind of way, although really, you can’t blame him for that. And who knows? Maybe I did sleep with Asian chicks all weekend. Let’s look at this weekend’s photos and find out.
Oh, right! On Friday morning, I met my new next-door neighbor. The New Peg. He’s got the prettiest cat you’ve ever seen, an orange fluffy girl named Oscar. She’s orange and fluffy–did I mention?–and I was a paragon of dignity, meeting her. And this is my neighbor’s friend’s dog, Rex, who was just visiting. He and Eds raised hackles at each other. It was beautiful.
Work was ridick all of Friday. There was some sort of snafu, and the copy editor who sits behind me and I officially had 30 hours’ worth of work to do in one day. We managed to delegate it and/or do it our own selves, and by 5:00, my eyeballs had fallen out and rolled to a bar.
Right after work, I went around the corner to the funeral home. Jo’s brother died last week, and I told her I’d come to either the funeral or the visitation, and the visitation (say “visitation” one more time, June) was literally around the corner from work.
As I got out of my car, another man was, too, not that I’m a man. So even though we didn’t know each other, we became Funeral Buds and stood in the receiving line and introduced each other to people we knew there. He was like my 20-minute husband.
Then I headed home, because I was so busy at work Friday that I never got to come home for lunch, so I let Eds out and fed everyone, and while I was doing that, The New Peg, my neighbor, came out and said, “Would you like to come over for a beer?”
Hell, yes, I would.
When Jo’s visitation was over, and I just made it sound like the angel of the Lord appeared to Jo, she called me and we got up with each other for snacks and moves from very old men.
We’d gone to this wine bar that apparently you must be 45 or older to attend. You know how on rides they’ll have, like, an upright alligator with a jaunty hat that says, “You must be this tall to ride”? At this place, they have a magnifying mirror. “You must have this many wrinkles to enter.”
“You must be able to recite the chorus to The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia to gain admission.”
Anyway, a man who was actually even older than Jo and me sauntered over. “You mind if I join you while I look for wine?” We happened to be near all the bottles, and I’d make some sort of drunk joke here, but Jo is the least-drinky person who actually drinks that I know. “Do they sell half-glasses?” I’ve heard her say.
In case you thought Jo and I eventually acquiesced and ended up in an old-man sandwich, a tongue-and-liverwurst on rye, we did not. We went home to our respectable abodes without incident.
On Saturday, I saw Ned.
Oh, good, June. Good.
We went out for Fruity Pebbles cupcakes, and by “we” I mean I ordered one and he looked on in horror.
Then we went to Target, where my soulmate had clearly been at some point earlier. Hashtag poop! Oh my god, hashtag poop! It’s my new favorite hashtag!
The whole point of seeing Ned was so that I could eventually pop in to see Nancy, and you can see how delighted she was about the visit.
Really, she PHOTOGRAPHS bitchy, but she’s the sweetest cat in the world. She’s always all, o hai! So happy and purry.
And she’s got her litterbox down pat!
Then I came home and some cat had pooped on the floor. I got new litter. I think it didn’t go down well. Irony.
On Sunday I had Alf over to tell me how much it would cost to fix all the things I want fixed. The only really scary cost is the one to put a real door up on my walk-in closet, aka Steely Dan’s Cafeteria Plan.
He’s telling me I need a new deck, Alf is. Edsel doesn’t give one shit. It’s falling apart, the deck is, so now I gotta save my pennies.
This is a time when I remind you that everything we discuss on Facebook of You-Know-Where is not what we necessarily discuss over here.
[June adjusts her papers meaningfully.]
Anyway, that about sums up the weekend. Now Steely Dan, who was out all night, then came in for disgusting canned breakfast and then demanded to go out again, is staring obsessively up in my tree, the one with the face on it.
I keep tryina call him in, because out-all-night kitty and he must be tired (I say that like he didn’t sleep in front of a fire with his other family, or another Asian woman like John Lennon) and he was TRYING to walk back in while never taking his eyes off the tree.
Finally, I looked up there. A cardinal family has been flitting around my house a lot, and they’re both up there, and if that cat eats cardinal babies Ima have his head. I’ll just walk around for the rest of time with that cat’s head on a stick. It’ll be my signature look.
Murderously,
House of June
Here. And lose the attitude, computer.
It was at a very muddy farm, as it has rained here for like 412 days.
This did not stop the white people. No, sir. There musta been 50 people there, and also there had been goat yoga the day before, as well. It was sold out, that one was.
Careful readers will note the ears in the window, and how did he KNOW it was me? It was 5:30 on a Tuesday; every motherfucker on god’s green was coming to get his or her dog, but old Ears up there…maybe that’s why. Maybe the ears tipped him off. He could hear my thoughts or whatever from Spain.
Anyway, my giant nose and I got him home and at some point I turned into a Rembrandt with that collar. I guess it’s a scarf. Still.
But because she is from Iowa and I am from Michigan, we decided to not be a couple of pussies, and we applied the same logic to the size of our popcorn. You’ll be stunned to hear we had some left over.
Then I got up today, as per usual, and kind of forgot it was supposed to have snown–yes, snown–and went about my normal business, such as navigating the Cat Calcutta that is my hallway first thing.
But I opened the blinds, and I was all, Oh, yay! I forgot that it was supposed to have snowded. Then I checked m’phone and Oh, yay! Work is canceled. Then I checked it further, and Oh, boo. We are expected to work anyway.
Meanwhile, back inside my ranch, and that joke never gets old, Steely Dan was torn between wanting to venture outside and being highly offended that something outside kept making his paws cold.
I was in the kitchen, doing dishes because hey, dishwasher that works, and Steely Dan kept opening the damn back door, going out, trying to walk on everything that wasn’t snowy, then coming back in getting bored and doing it all over again. I’d have snapped his neck had it not been sort of cute.
He also begged to go out the front, as if maybe it hadn’t snowed in the front yard.
(I just took this yesterday, and was stunned by just HOW busy that road was. Tallulah was less than 3 months old when I found her, and you guys, she was past that gutter. It gives me chills. She was probably moments from being in that road.)
I never made it to the interview, because as we all know by now, I made the best U-turn of my life and swooped that little puppy up and into my car. My initial plan had been to knock on the trailer doors, there, to say, “Here’s your dog,” but when I saw all the yards weren’t fenced, and that she was so very skinny, and once I saw the sun glint through her gold eyelashes, I instead shut my car door and put her in the passenger seat. And right then I knew, I had myself a Tallulah dog.
She was the best passenger I ever had, for 8 years.
So, once again, my favorite passenger and I got into the car and headed on down the road a piece.
Whenever I return to TinyTown, I am charmed by the people and the beautiful old houses and I think, Why the hell did I ever leave TinyTown? I wonder if I’d have gotten divorced if I’d left. I wonder if I’d have ever met Ned. I’d never have had a Steely Dan, or known a single Alex.
This sums up my experience of going from being a proofreader at an ad agency in Los Angeles to being a church secretary in a town of 3,000. IT WAS THE HARDEST JOB I EVER HAD.
When I pulled up to his house, he ran out for me with an umbrella, and does anyone want to join me in wondering why I left TinyTown? He’d made a cozy fire in the living room, and we had lunch and talked about just everything. That’s the thing about the people there: They all have the gift of gab. They make an afternoon fly by, because they actually know how to have conversations. No one checks a phone, no one dominates the talk. It’s a skill everyone there seems to have.
I was stunned to see they still have their mean cat, Dixie, named because she was found out behind a Winn-Dixie 14 years ago. “Has she gotten any nicer?” I asked hopefully. “Can I pet her yet?”
Of course, we talked about Lucy, and he even gave me some of her ashes, and I got my nerve up and asked, and YES, she got to be buried in her Tiffany box after all. I really almost cried when I found out. I so wanted her to get her Tiffany box.
I also drove through the bustling downtown that continues to be adorable, then over to my old rental house, which doesn’t look good. They cut down some greenery, somehow. I want to look at old photos to compare the difference, but it looks barer now.
I forget how happy the people of TinyTown make me. And when I left their house, Jerry walked me to my car with an umbrella over me.
The closer I got to home, the snowier it got, and while hydroplaning was not relaxing, neither was slipping on the ice. Despite my concrete shoulders, I took time out of sliding on the road to open the gift Jerry and Rachel had given me, a big tin of peanuts, and what better time to delve into a tin of peanuts than when you’re on an icy road, with cars spun out every few miles and ambulances everywhere? It’s a moment that cries out for a peanut break.
It didn’t even snow that much–although it’s still snowing as we speak. But it’s that kind with the icy top layer, like a creme brûlée. And today I was supposed to go do something exciting that I was gonna tell you about, but now that’s been put off.
Anyway, here’s the coat.
After I got my designs from the archives last night, and before I came home to show off for company, I headed back to the bookstore to sit in the window and watch people. Judge their pumpkins. I like how I show you instead a view INSIDE the store, but whatever.
Oooo, also, I forgot to mention that when I took a walk with m’coworkers yesterday, I saw a KITTEN, a black-and-white KITTEN, under a car. “KITTEN!” I said, racing toward it.
Dear God. Yes, I DID have that shirt on inside-out. You know how I am.
I stood in my backyard just now and watched several leaves fall from the branches of my tree and sway all the way to the ground. It was so pretty that I got the phone so I could show you, but of course once I got the damn phone, the leaves stayed tight.
.
