This morning, I woke up at Ned’s. Continue reading “Let me call you Megan, I’m in love with you.”
Category: Freaky Friday
June plays it safe with an unoffensive title
So far this Easter weekend I’ve had to call the emergency number for the gas company so that I wouldn’t blow up, told Ned we have to not talk for a few months, put up a bat house, heard from two men from my past, and ordered two new bras. 36D in the howse! Actually, 36D in the mail. Continue reading “June plays it safe with an unoffensive title”
Stampeding for pasties
Mercury is in retrograde, did you know? That means–and I know this because I lived in LA for 10 years, so I'm an expert in all things weird–that communication gets slowed down or misunderstood or convoluted, somehow. So hree d dkehere odoseene fisl, 0e.
See what I did, there?
The POINT is, yesterday I sat here like an idiot, as opposed to the other times that I sit here like a genius, and wrote you a whole blog post with hilarity and big reveals and the most important news of our day, and then boom. It was gone. Just gone. And then my internet died.
So I drove to work and tried to post from there? The whole post didn't exist anymore. And I'd saved a draft, but it was completely gone.
It wasn't that good of a post anyway, but still. Stupid Mercury. Rolling around on my floor, all silvery and elusive.
It'll be here through the 22nd. The retrograde thing will. So be on guard. En garde. I'm poking you with my drink sword.
Do you do that in your family, or is it just mine? You get some kind of elaborate drink, such as a Shirley Temple, and it has a sword with all your fruit on it, there, girly drink, and you take the fruit off and have sword fights with others at the table? Is that just me?
The other day, I was at this great sandwich restaurant I love. It's like the restaurant that time forgot. It was invented in the late '70s, and they've updated nothing. Their sign is big fat rounded letters carved from individual pieces of wood. They have paintings of ballerinas on the wall. It's paneled. Oh dear god I love it there.
Plus also, they have any kind of soda imaginable, and my entire point is as I was leaving the other day I noted they had Shirley Temple–flavor soda. Ever since I saw that, I have been dying to try it. It comes in glass bottles. Maybe I have a hashtag goal this weekend now. It's a limited-edition flavor. Fancy.
This was the important picture I was trying to plunk in for you yesterday when all hell broke loose with stupid Mercury. I was trying to tell you that my new lawn guy is DA BOMB and he's cleaned up all the weeds and weed trees and so on in my yard, leaving Edsel few places to poop. Part of what I've learned from my Edsel support groups on Facebook is that other Carolina Dogs are weird about pooping, too. Edsel has never pooped on a walk. He goes off into a bush and does it there. You can see his choices are now limited. And now I'm thinking, "I wonder if I can get a fake bush?" This is why I never have any money. I'm forever Sisyphus-ing things.
What I need to do is hire some shirtless man to put up my zoo sign. He can poop behind that. Edsel, not the shirtless handyman.
Tonight is First Friday in Greensboro, although really it's the first Friday of the month for everyone, not just us, and first of all we're having goodbye drinks with someone at work who's leaving. It feels like everyone is leaving. We just hired two new people named Alex, though, and I am not even kidding you.
Anyway, after that are the regular downtown festivities, including my friend Kit celebrating 15 years of her vintage store, so she's having special things like she's gonna greet everyone topless with just her vintage pasties and so on. I should have suggested this idea to her weeks ago, so she could be on the lookout for pasties.
Also, at a different store, for some reason they are having naked painted women, and you know Ima stampede to that. Maybe shop for my fake bush there.
So a big evening, is what I'm saying. I'm preparing for a time. A big time.
My mother just texted me with, "OMG, GOP. WTF?" She is so delighted.
And finally, Lottie's parents have been sending me photos and videos that I can't upload here for some reason (Mercury), and I love seeing her little black-mouthed self. Oh, Lottie. I miss that devil dog so. I can still see a spot on her little snout where fang of Eds visited. Lottie and I should have just gotten in the car and driven off. Left Edsel in the dust to pay for this house on his own. See how he liked that.
I probably would have returned to find Edsel the CEO of some organization, and a second level added to my house.
I hope everyone takes full advantage of this last weekend to wear white pants. I want you to go around like the Good Humor man all weekend. For me, it just isn't Labor Day without Jerry Lewis.
Retrogradely,
June
[Intentionally left blank]
Coming out of the shower this morning, I realized that right now, my house smells like a perfect combination of freshly brewed coffee and puppy. What more can you ask for?
Somehow that made me think of: drivin' home this evenin', coulda sworn we had it all worked out.
Mostly what that woman did in that video was stare blankly.
Wait, I've emulated it for you. Little music video for your viewing pleasure.
This is how men want us. Hot and blank. Like my coffee. Do you remember that friend of mine, The Other June, who I haven't seen in ages, who came over once and I offered her coffee, and I said, "Do you take anything in it?"
"Oh, no," she said, "just cream and sugar."
That has haunted me. It's haunted me all this time. That must have been seven years ago. Oh, no. Just cream and sugar.
WHAT ELSE IS THERE?
Yes. I take abandoned toys and corkscrews in my coffee. You got any?
I love a cabana boy in my coffee.
Oh no. Just cream and sugar.
IT HAUNTS.
It's like that story I know I've told you, where I ran that marathon in Chicago. It was a fundraiser for AIDS Project Los Angeles, where we raised money for them and they flew us to Chicago and put us up in a swank hotel and we all ran the Chicago marathon. As opposed to flying to Chicago and running the Madrid marathon.
Anyway, there was a little party after. Whichever asshole planned the party said, Hey! I know! Let's have everyone run 26.2 miles, then after they've showered and gotten stiff, we'll have a party you have to access by climbing many many many stairs!
You've never seen so many people go upstairs sideways, like crabs.
The point is, once we were up there, mawing on snacks like we'd never seen snacks before, or like we'd, oh, run 26.2 miles that day, one guy said, "Weren't the showers at our hotel fantastic?"
They really were. It was a lovely hotel. The morning of the marathon, I had to get up at like 4:30 or some godawful time that even thinking about it now makes me ill, and I was filling my little running pack with dried fruit and stuff, and I looked out the window. Across the courtyard were so many other lights on, and I knew everyone in them was also running the marathon, and it was so thrilling. It was like Rear Window, but it was more Run Window.
Dear June, Try to at least make sense. Love, Reader.
OH MY GOD ANYWAY. Gay guy at party. Loved the showers. We agreed the showers were good.
"That was the second-most refreshing shower I've ever had," he said.
HAUNTED.
WHAT ELSE HAS HE DONE that there would ever be a shower, anywhere ever, more refreshing than the one you take after running
TWENTY-SIX
POINT
TWO
miles? What? Did he mud wrestle an elephant? Was he abandoned in a rainforest for a week?
WHAT?
I'll never know. I've thought of calling AIDS Project LA, asking for the entire roster of everyone who ran the 2000 Chicago marathon, and calling every man who ran it to ask WERE YOU THE ONE WHO TOOK THE SECOND-MOST REFRESHING SHOWER?
Also, who ranks their showers?
In completely unrelated news, the elusive two-headed cat came to feast at my dwelling.
Yesterday, I took the day off and ended up working in my lavender nightgown all day. "Oh, I'll just do this a minute," I said, opening my laptop. I closed it at 6:00. "Can I, like, get a refund on my day?" I emailed my boss. She said yes.
So that was relaxing. And then as soon as I took off my sexy nightgown and got on my workout clothes, I got a migraine. I did half of Tracy Gold workout until my head threatened to kill me, and then I lay prone and moaning all evening.
All in all, a fun day. Second-most fun day of my life. No, just cream and sugar.
While I've been writing you this impressive tome, I looked behind me and noticed this. This is nice. Now they have a window to the stars. It rained like the dickens last night, it rained sad orphans, and as a result the dogs tracked in ALL THE MUD. I mean, there is no more mud out there. They tracked in people's adobes, and mud huts–which are probably the same as adobes–and basically all the earth is here. Clean, is what my floors are.
I wash my floor almost every day now. It's like I'm a clean freak without the clean part.
Believe it or not, this important post must come to an end, and I know it cuts like a knife. I know you wanted more from me. No, not really. Just cream and sugar.
IT HAUNTS.
Luff,
June
June gets a threatening can of beans
After yesterday's tragedy of my sparkly Eiffel Tower notebook being stolen RIGHT OFF MY DESK,
(outline of the body)
I came to my pretty house
and did the things I normally do, such as feed the dogs, let the dogs out (who, who who), feed the cats, let the dogs back in, slop the hogs, note the writing in the spiderweb and then get the mail.
We should all totally read Charlotte's Web for our next book club. Why are all the best books ones I've already read?
Anyway, I went to the porch to get the mail, my pretty porch with all the pink and red flowers like I live in a fairy tale, and this was on my welcome mat.
Please note that I do not actually HAVE a welcome mat, as I really don't welcome anyone. I know I've said 200 times that my mother has people running in and out of her house all day, and if this happened to me on the regular I would kill myself. She grew up with a lot of people; I grew up with me, and two adults who came home for dinner then went off to do stuff like go to political meetings.
My mother was forever going off to political meetings, and it just dawned on me that that's what Frank Kennedy told Scarlett O'Hara he was doing when he was forming the Ku Klux Klan and got himself shot clean in the head. I dearly hope that's not what my mother was up to in the '70s. Do they even allow women in the KKK?
All of a sudden I don't like Ashley even more than I didn't already. That fuck ass was ALSO at a "political meeting." Gentlemanly Ashley. What a fuckstick. Melanie was dumb as a stump.
Oh my god anyway. So I find this weird can right outside my front door.
"But I fix thing good." Smiley face.
WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN? How effing creepy is this can and note? Nothing says "threat to your life" like a can of green beans.
"Could it be the stupid kids across the street?" asked Ned. Well, talk about indirect. If they hate us, why not just have a party at 4 a.m.–oh. They do.
I have no idea. It's eerie, is what it is. It's Freaky Friday. Is what it is. And people ask, "Whatever happened to Freaky Friday" and the answer is, no one has sent in a new weird story. I guess I could make one up, or alternatively get threatening cans of beans on my porch to really liven up this blog.
I'm off. To fix thing good. Smiley face.
Freaky Friday: Gordon Lightfoot Edition
Thanks for your how-to-fix-a-scratch tips yesterday. Who knew rubbing a walnut on it would work? Aw nuts.
June's blog. Come for the hilarity. Get disappointed.
Anyway, today is Friday, so I bring you a Freaky Friday from Faithful Reader MissPam, who tells us stories of her kid, Amy, that we all love. Here is her Freaky Friday story:
Miss June,
This is not big time freaky. Just a little freaky. Feel free to scorn it!
When we were stationed at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina we were especially close friends with our next door neighbors, the Lightfoots. We had moved in around the same time. We were in and out of each other's houses constantly. Between us, we had eight kids. All the kids without exception hated the Lightfoots' downstairs bathroom. They all called it the scary bathroom. They would either run upstairs or even next door to avoid using it and no one ever wanted to bathe in there. We never got a straight answer as to why it was scary. It just was. I personally thought it was because Amy hated flushing toilets and somehow had influenced the others. It was a loud flush. We had lived there almost two years when the bathtub clogged up in there. Judy scheduled maintenance to come and repair it. Afterward she came over and had to tell me a secret that we both swore never ever to tell the kids.
The tub was the type with the drain thingy being a metal disc with small holes and you closed the drainage with a knob up on the faucet. The plumber had to remove it with a screwdriver, and once he did, there was an obstruction right there at the metal plate. He had to pry it out. Judy brought it with her when she ran over to our house. It was a heavy black metal pentagram.
Some previous occupant had taken off the metal disc and wedged it into the drain! To what purpose I have no idea. But it freaked us out. I'd like to say the kids instantly started liking the bathroom. That didn't happen. Just afterward Judy and I took to avoiding the scary bathroom. And it was.
Side note. Amy is still afraid of the self-flushing toilets. She reports to me whenever she encounters one. "Mom, it was one of those scary toilets. I had to run!" Makes road trips enjoyable. We keep track.
MissPam
Extra-spooky Freaky Friday because it’s Easter. Or something.
Boo!
Are you horrified? Do I do that every year? I think I do. The point is, it's St. Patrick's Day and we're all getting ready to cut turkey with our families and spin a dreidel. Speaking of which…
I guess Jewish kids were sick of getting the shaft, AGAIN, when it comes to their holidays, so they get Mensch on a Bench, now, to ensure they're good for Hanukkah or something. Poor Jewish kids. Seriously, I'd tell Marvin about my Christmases and Easters and he'd be all, we look for a cracker. That'd be it. Their whole holiday. Oooo, we found a cracker! Cellllllebrate good times, come on!
Anyway, today is Arbor Day and because it is, I'm giving you a good Freaky Friday, sent by Faithful Reader Jennifer. Ready?
OOOOOOOOOooooWEEEEEoooooooo…..
Dear June,
I thought you might be interested in the following benevolent ghost story for your Freaky Friday series.
My husband and I recently purchased an old home in Thomasville, Georgia. It's more than 100 years old and, of course, people have asked if it was haunted. When we were moving in, my sister-in-law got the willies when heading up our stairs. My mother grew up in a haunted house (with a true dirty-old-man sort of ghost), so she cackled (yes, really) over the thought ours might now be.
We spent a few weekends camping out between closing on the property and moving in and didn't really notice anything other than the usual old house noises echoing around empty rooms. After we moved in, though, and spent that first night in our new master bedroom, things were different.
While my husband slept on, blissfully unaware, I was awakened multiple times in the night by a series of four knocks coming from who knows where–I certainly wasn't about to go investigate! There were also sounds of boxes being slid around the wood floors downstairs–that creeped me out the most, even if nothing was out of place the next morning. I was not amused; mostly I was just tired!
Now, I'm fairly comfortable with the concepts of the astral realm, etc. I read Tarot cards and have done some scrying and Ouija board work. I consider myself fairly intuitive, but I've never had any one-on-one experiences with spirits outside of the scrying and spirit board stuff. But I did know that I wasn't going through another night like that one, so–through meditation/visualization–I put up a security blanket around the house to ward against any metaphysical mischief (I also may have told the house, aloud, "Not tonight, Momma needs some sleep!"). It seemed to work, no more strange noises in the night.
We hosted a Halloween party last weekend and, knowing that a couple of my guests are sensitive to ghosts/spirits, I took down the security blanket (but left up a net–I'm semi-brave, not fully stupid) and told anyone/thing listening that as long as they could play nice, they could come play tonight.
Having just finished up one of the house tours to a group of guests, the Friend M told me, "You're not alone." Okay then! Apparently she encountered two spirits in the house, but they just seemed curious about what was going on. Fair enough. She wasn't able to get much more from them as she wasn't feeling well that evening.
Friend S, though, really clicked with one of the spirits: a woman, appearing to be in her mid-30s, who was decidedly happy that there was laughter in the house again after so very long of being tired and down. S did not yet know that the house had been rented out as a personal care home for the last 10+ years and was vacant for a time before that. I don't doubt for a minute that the state of the house when we purchased it reflected the state of the care the patients received during their time here.
But that wasn't all she shared! There is a section of the staircase that she is uneasy on; that she clutches the railing for dear life as she goes down. It was either that she'd fallen down them or that she'd witnessed a fall. Also, in what is now my office, there was an argument of life-altering sort/things-that-cannot-be-unsaid vein that took place between a man and a woman.
In my research into the house's history, I'd learned that the original owner did take a tumble down the stairs and was hospitalized. And I believe it was shortly before his passing or the cause of it. So, if it was his fall that the woman witnessed, that could make her his daughter. And I also know that the daughter was a schoolteacher and never married, living out her days in this house at least through her retirement, so I got the impression it was an argument over a suitable suitor. She didn't seem to indicate (via S) that this was wrong.
I'm looking forward to finding out what more this spirit (that I keep calling Eleanor in my head for whatever reason) has to show me about the house. Though, right now, I'd happily settle for the whereabouts of the leak that started last night from the upstairs pipes!
Inch-of-my-life Freaky Friday
I'm running late of course again today, and really Nedding takes up a lot of my time. It's my new hobby. It's not a bad hobby as those things go, but I feel like knitting would not distract me till after 8:00 in the morning.
At any rate, here it is Friday and I remembered to bring you a Freaky Friday story, because I am organized within an inch of my life. It's brought to you by Pamela Soul Sister, who has read and commented here for 73 years.
Before I delve into her story, lemme put all these pictures up that I keep meaning to show you and never do. They are all very congruous and organized. Because organized within an inch of my life.
Ned in Peg's yard the day she gave us pizza. Ned went to NC State. Ned is a trifle obsessed with NC State things, like sports things, and boy, me too.
My work husband, Ryan, went to a lunch-and-learn at work, and ate the box lunch provided. Someone didn't show up for the lunch-and-learn, so here is Ryan having second lunch, inexplicably at my desk. I would like to tell you I did not eat all those chocolate-covered almonds but that would be a lie.
Another rare and unusual Eds with Blu sighting.
I feel like maybe I didn't get big enough dog beds for my poor curs. Look at Edsel, falling off his. Will rectify.
TinaDoris gave me housewarming Pop Tarts.
Ned at the hamburger place, where a kid acted the fool the entire time. He was like, 8, or maybe 15, or maybe not, but he was too old to be acting the fool. His stupid dad let him run in and out the door, and finally the stupid kid hit his face on the window and SCREAMED so much that the whole place fell silent. No one felt sorry for that bratty kid.
Okay, good. Desktop is clear. Onto Pamela Soul Sister, so to speak. PSS, you will notice Ned is right on top of you. We're having the same morning!
PSS's FREAKY FRIDAY STORY
My first grownup apartment was a converted warehouse in downtown Brooklyn, NYC. Soon after moving in, my roommate and I would both hear all kinds of strange, un-attributable sounds at all hours of the day and night. Also, things would fall when no one was near. We were told that someone had died on the premises when it was a candy factory. So, we just assumed it was the spirit of that poor soul.
We tried to cleanse our space with sage and Florida water and such, but nothing worked. We frequented a Yoruba candle shop in the neighborhood and decided to call in some professionals. Two little old brown ladies dressed in white, Santeria priestesses, showed up…with sage and Florida water (um…we tried that)!. But they also brought with them The Gift. They told us that it was not the soul who died there that was with us, but several of my guardian angels. The most animated of the bunch was a Native American ancestor (they could tell he was Native American by his garb), who made it his mission to look after me. They said he was harmless, but just liked to make his presence known. They told me to talk to him and tell him that I appreciated his presence, but that he should quiet down and stop scaring us.
I did as they instructed. It worked. The shenanigans stopped cold.
Before they departed, they told me, "Oh, by the way…you have The Gift, too. You can do what we do. You just need to develop your psychic muscle." Or some such words.
A year or so later, I got a reading from a very renowned intuitive and he confirmed everything those ladies told me.
I've been using my powers for good ever since. Just kidding. I am purposefully not tapped in to that part of me…yet. OOOWEEOOO!
-Pamela Soul Sister-
Freaky Fleeta Friday
I keep forgetting to tell you something cool. You know my coworker, who when I talk about her on this blog I call Fleeta, and I came up with that name using the random name generator? And we were all, Fleeta. Pfft. Yeah, there's a name. Remember that?
Fleeta.
Well, recently our pal Fleet (that's her casual, we-know-her-so-well nickname) went back home for a visit, and she asked some of the older relatives to tell her stories about the family, stories from way back, so she'd know her history.
Turns out? Her great grandmother? Fleeta. HER GREAT-GRANDMOTHER'S NAME WAS FLEETA!
How weird is that? Out of all the names the random name generator came up with. And who ever even HEARD of that name, ever?
So that's today's first Freaky Friday story, and here's a bonus story, from an actual reader, who wanted me to give her a cool name, so I will call her Phleeta.
Oh my god I love myself.
_________________________________________________________________________
This doesn't seem like much of a story compared to some others you've had but here goes.
About forty years ago we were living in a new house in a new subdivision in Knoxville, Tennessee. There were a lot of creaking noises at night; we were told by the builder that new houses did that as they settled. One dark night I found myself suddenly wide awake andI felt someone was in the room. I sat up and I saw a small figure in a white gown at the foot of the bed. I couldn't see the face clearly but the white gown shown in the darkness. I thought it was my six year old daughter and I whispered her name, twice. Then I remembered, she doesn't have a white nightgown anymore. The figure slowly dissolved and I lay there with my heart pounding. I knew there had been something there.
I didn't tell anyone what I had seen. I didn't want to frighten my small children and I didn't think anyone else would believe me.
Seven years later we're living in a different house, different city.My now 13 year old daughter heard me telling this story to a neighbor and her mouth fell open. She said that in that same house she had been lying awake late one night (child was a night owl and always had trouble sleeping) and she saw a man and a woman in a red dress dancing down the hall. She said, "I thought it was you and Dad at first but then……I realized it wasn't. I never told anyone because I didn't think anyone would believe me."
She's now 46 and she still swears this is true. I have no explanation of why there would be ghosts in a new house. The subdivision was on the site of an old farm but that's all I know. We moved a year later
and I've always regretted not contacting the new owners to see if they ever saw anything. My daughter and I still talk about it occasionally and it haunts (ha!) us to this day.
Hauntingly,
Phleeta, but give me a cool name if you use this
Freaky Friday: Look what June remembered to do!
I have gotten a few Freaky Friday submissions since Peter's chilling tale. Here's one from Jeanne.
__________________________________________________________________________
My mother used to tell a story about me: When I about four, I found my mother weeping and asked her why. She told me it was my late grandmother’s birthday and that she missed her mother. I left the room and came back about ten minutes later holding my hand in the air. When my mother asked what I was doing, I said that I had brought my grandmother to visit. I don’t remember having my hand in the air— I do remember walking from my mother’s bedroom to mine, and stopping in the doorway because even though the room was empty, I felt like there was someone there. And then I remember being picked up.
Twenty years later, I was at a friend’s house and told her the story. She asked if I’d ever had that sensation again, as if there was someone in what seemed to be an empty room. When I said that I occasionally had that feeling, she asked if I’d felt it in her house. Without thinking, I pointed to the next room and said, “Well, there’s something by the dining room window.”
The next day she told her neighbor what I’d said and the neighbor got a weird look on her face. She told my friend that the previous occupant of the house had been a sickly old man who sat for hours looking out that window every day for the last ten years of his life.
_________________________________________________________________________
OooooWEEEEEOoooooo! Jeanne freaks me out.
I leave you now with something I found while I was (WAIT FOR IT!) (WAAAAAAIT!) packing. When my mother turned 60, she asked Marvin to write a song for her. So he did. You'll never guess what my mom's name is after you hear it.
I hope you can click on it and play. Kills me. Marvin was funny. Okay, I'm out. Have a fine weekend and please give me words of cheer because all I will be doing is schlepping and cleaning, cleaning and schlepping.
XO, Pam
