Music – Book of June

Songs in the key of…where the hell are my keys?

Published on February 9, 2018February 9, 2018 by June72 Comments

Right before you get to my work is a funeral home. In fact, the buildings surrounding my office are doctor’s offices, an old folks’ home, and this funeral parlor. Because apparently I’m writing to you on a slate, from my log cabin near my potbelly stove with my sassafras and unicycle.

Funeral parlor.

Old folks’ home.

Consarn it.

What I’m saying to you is it’s occurred to me that death is right near me all day long.

In the morning and evenings, it’s generally not busy, the funeral parlor, but sometimes as I come back from lunch in my horseless carriage, people are filing out from a funeral, and that is when I always find myself blaring just the most awful music.

The thing is, it’s so sporadic. You can go months without hitting the funeral procession, so you get lax. But the other day, as Smack My Bitch Up was blaring out my window, I started to think about music.

Not about what a terrible person I am, but about music.

It’s occurred to me lately that most of my taste in music is because of men. (Although I have to admit, my love of Smack My Bitch Up is all my own.)

Anyway, I’m almost certain that I’ve written before about how, while looking through pictures one day, I realized that I used to look like my boyfriends as time went on. I have two photo-booth shots with different boyfriends, and our hair is alike in each one. I changed my hair to match whatever boyfriend’s.

I know I must have written about that, I just know it, but can I find it? I cannot. However, while Googling the shit outta my old blog posts, somehow I found this in Google Images…

9e76018e6ed7d25bb7ef8f9726be62d6--young-girls-a-young.jpg

Oh my god I TOTALLY.HAD.THIS. I want to say it was a gift from my Aunt Kathy, but maybe I just bought it for m’self. Anyway, had completely forgotten this stationery and am currently dying. Will have to go to own funeral soon. And someone can blare music past it.

Anyway.

The reason I like Bob Dylan and The Beatles is because of my father, who would be playing records, literally records, while I was falling asleep, and remember back when adults could just play their records and not coddle the fuck out of children? I’ve been at people’s houses, who INVITED ME OVER, then were all, “Shhhh, the children are trying to sleep.” So the fuck what? Get them used to people talking. It’ll prepare them for the dorm.

What’s your favorite Beatles song? And if you don’t like them, just don’t comment on that. It will make me like you less. I’m serious. It’s like people who say, “I just don’t like animals.” I mean, I won’t disinvite you to my wedding, but you’ll drop a notch.

Also, my Uncle Jim, with his constant listening to records and drumming to them, and how did my grandmother not go upstairs and bludgeon him, was a giant influence. He was also a Beatles person, but what I remember most are these solo songs, which I love…

Fuckin’ Yoko, man.

Anyway, so that’s how it got started, men influencing my song choices, and then I started dating. And then, oh lord, I fell in love with someone who loved music, and there it was.

There isn’t a single Led Zepplin song I don’t love, because whether we were in his room, or down in his finished basement with the fireplace and the pillows, or even over at my house, he was playing music. And it was often Led Zepplin. I hear these songs and it’s winter (IT WAS ALWAYS WINTER in Michigan), with the snowflakes and seeing your breath when you’re making out in the car and the fire in the basement and oh my god, I loved the shit out of that stupid young boy.

Then I went to college.

Pretty much every brooding boyfriend I had (i.e., all of them) liked The Smiths, and also?

I can remember college boyfriend #74855 putting Shpritz Forte in his pompadour

41B3ml+9YuL._SY355_ while Squeeze was playing Tempted. I can see him, looking into his dorm room mirror, singing along after spending many many (many) minutes trying to convince me to give him a blowie before we left.

Hey, mom.

Then I got back together with the boy from high school, the Led Zepplin one, and his taste in music had changed, so mine changed along with it.

…It’s taken me ages to find all these songs and plunk them in here, and I have to go, and I know you’re sad I can’t trip down memory lane more, but I blame Ned for liking this…

Since I have to go, why don’t you all be my new boyfriend. What are you listening to lately? Share in the comments.

When did I become someone who says, “Share in the comments”? Click like and share for a chance to win big. Whatever with me. Where is my mind? Heh.

Musically,

June

With her caffeine, her Ritalin, and her pearls. Of wisdom.

Published on October 25, 2017October 25, 2017 by June104 Comments

That’s really my favorite line from a song.

WHAT is, June? We aren’t actually there in your head. And clearly half the time we don’t read your title.

“With her fog, her amphetamines, and her pearls.” Love that line. Also, do you ever do this? If anyone says to me, “I hate Bob Dylan. Oh, that nasal way he sings,” I just assume that person is dumb. I also never wish to hear that you don’t like the Beatles, because you then plummet into the same category I place “don’t like cats” people.

I can never feel the same about those people again.

What’s your thing, your bottom line, that sort of reduces your opinion of a person irrevocably? Like, I find it utterly baffling that you don’t like tomatoes, but I won’t like you less because of it. Not liking cats, though. See. I gotta take you at least down to the B list, if not the C. You’re my Hilary Swank. You USED to be something.

Last night, I told this guy from work I’d help him with his personal project, which just sounded vaguely dirty and isn’t. Writing is not his jam, see, so for a few nights I’ve stayed after work to help him out, and last night was one of those nights. One of these crazy old nights. We’re gonna find out, pretty mama.

See. I didn’t really hate the Eagles, ever, but once The Poet expressed to me her distaste, their lyrics are becoming noticeably ridiculous to me.

Anyway, it was exactly 5:00, and my phone rang. It was one of the Alexes. “I’m actually leaving work at 5:00!” she exclaimed. “Want to hang?”

We’ve been trying to do something for fucking ever, and she’s always got things going on, as she’s a millennial who grew up here, so she’s got that whole 90210 group of thus-far childless friends she still hangs with. Plus also she’s forever got family things. We live maybe a mile apart and I think the last time we saw each other was last Christmas.

“YES!” I said, excited, and then I remembered. Vilhelm Oyster. I branded my coworker with that name in 2011, and that’s who I promised I’d help. I’d been looking for him, anyway, to see if we were ready to begin our little after-work work, and he hadn’t been around, but then I began searching for him in earnest.

“Vilhlem!” I said, locating him, and I really do call him Vilhelm, which probably irritates everyone around us. “Alex called, and we never ever see each other, and she’s actually available today, right now! Can we work tomorrow?”

“No,” said Vilhelm.

So I moped over to the phone to call Alex and say I couldn’t meet her, but Vilhelm came over and said, YES, I COULD see her after all, and now I gotta find a way to blow him off tonight.

I kid. I will work with him tonight. Probably.

Anyway, I probably went to his B list when I bailed last night.

I took zero photos of Alex being here eating popcorn and drinking wine with me, as I was, oh, in the moment, so you’re gonna have to trust me on this. Also, I have a freelance assignment I want to get done with, and I’m nowhere NEAR done, and yesterday I got offered ANOTHER freelance assignment, and one wonders about my broken back/fenders polishing situation.

While all that wasn’t happening yesterday, I came home at lunch and took action shots of the pets. Act-shun, I wanna live. Wow, June, you’re so not at all predictable, with your lyrics.

Poor blindy Iris. A GOOD mom would have said, “Look out, Irises!” But no.

Also…

And

Perhaps you’re wondering who got a snout full o’claws, but are you? Are you wondering? Or do you know the answer already?

I put in my contacts just now; they’d been resting comfortably in the pocket on my robe. But once I put them on, seeing this screen isn’t easy, as then I need my reading glasses. Hello, 462.

I want you to promise me that no matter how old and feeble I get, still sitting here blogging my goddamn days at you, that the minute I in all seriousness say my age as anything “years young” that you will put me out to pasture with Ferdinand the Bull.

I’m 52 years young! Heh. …Hey, where ya takin’ me?

Anyway, I got up to get reading glasses just now. I noticed my coffee cup was empty (By the way, that Ward guy I dated briefly? Had, like, three cups of espresso before work, then a pot of coffee once he was there. I admired his fortitude), so I filled it, then I looked for pants, because what pants am I gonna wear today? Then I put some stuff in recycling, as I am a filthy liberal snowflake who recycles, and finally I sat back down here.

No reading glasses. I’m typing you from as far back as I can go and still reach the keyboard.

way back june.jpg — helloooooo! can you hear me from back here?

What I’m saying to you is the Ritalin has not kicked in yet. Clearly.

I’m still taking a fairly low dose, but it is marvelous, is what it is. Once it begins working, anyway.

Okay, I gotta go. Still on pants quest. It was kind of easier when we were “business casual” and not “hep agency” because the former required nothing from me but eleventeen pairs of black pants. And one gray. For when I was whooping it up.

Whoop, there it is.

Juan

WHAT.

Published on June 22, 2017June 22, 2017 by June77 Comments

My GERD medicine annoys me. Continue reading “WHAT.” →

It was the 3rd of June, another sleepy dusty Delta day. Volume XVIIIX934X

Published on June 3, 2017June 7, 2017 by June35 Comments

I’m only writing at you because it’s our day.

A few years back, when I sat next to my boss, fmr., he and I got into one of our 408-minute discussions about Things That Didn’t Matter and gee, I wonder why they split us up. That day, the discussion centered on what did Billy Jo McAllister toss off that bridge? Continue reading “It was the 3rd of June, another sleepy dusty Delta day. Volume XVIIIX934X” →

That’s why the Juney is a tramp.

Published on December 9, 2016April 15, 2017 by June44 Comments

Why does Edsel have to go outside and bark bark bark? The neighbors must hate me. Can't he just enjoy outdoors? Sniff a rock and survey his domain in silence, the way Tallulah did? But no. Instead, he tears over to one of the four backyards we face (one is sort of in the corner. And it technically shows us TWO yards) and barks endlessly at anyone who has the nerve to be in his or her own dwelling. Particularly if any of those people happen to be dogs.

Is this a Carolina Dog thing? I need to get on my Edsel Support Group page on Facebook. We're all forever checking in on one another. "Does your Carolina Dog make prank phone calls? Does your Carolina Dog always burn the chicken?"

Do you karoline dog ROCK DE INTERNET?

Speaking of chicken, I've ruined the chicken and the egg so far this week. On Sunday I went to the grocery store and got things like yogurt and nuts and fruit and spinach until Ned finally said, "What's gotten INTO you?" and I explained to him how tired of feeling fat I was, a thing he can identify with because he can't work out with his bulging disk and he abhors his own self currently.

He's been out of town all week, Ned has, and each night I come home and make something sensible and do Tracy Chapman and so far I've gained six pounds.

Anyway, the first thing I did was never cook the chicken breasts I bought, and now they've gone bad. They're using the wrong form of "their" on Facebook and protesting soldiers' funerals cause they hate gay people.

Then last night I made the eggs. "How do you hard-boil eggs?" I asked Ned when he called me from the airport. He's not staying at an airport; rather, he was coming home. His plane was delayed, natch, and it made his mood sparkling. He got in late last night and has to get up for physical therapy at 8:00 today, so.

He gets too tired for PT at 8:00. He likes the theater and always comes late. He's extra into whatever he ate. That's why my boyfriend-for-90-days-same-as-cash is a tramp.

That song makes no sense. I mean, MY version totally does, but the real one. How do any of those traits make you a tramp? I mean, you could just apply any trait and be all, "Tramp."

She blogs for too long; for work she is late. She's dragged to movies she knows she will hate. If she and Ned fail, she wants a rebate.

That's why the Juney is a tramp.

I have no idea what we were talking about. Let's move on. And that's why the lady is a tramp. No matter what your comment is today, I want you to follow it up with telling me why that makes you a tramp. You know how I get. That's why the blogger is a tramp.

She talks about her crap with barons and earls.

Okay, I'm over it. No, I'm not. I'm like Edsel in the yard. I can't get over it.

I finished my 10-year-anniversary-of-blogging video last night. I came IN here to write something for Purple Clover (I know, right? They asked) and after, I took a gander at my video and then sat here for 29 hours changing it again. I did not use the photo above, where Ned looks pensive and deep but really he was checking out the menu at Steak and Shake. But I've always liked that Ned shot. That's why the lady is a tramp.

You probably saw this cute Iris photo on Facebook already, unless you are officially my mother, who is not on Facebook. While I was home, I noted if I typed Facebook into her search bar, it just leaped right into my FB page. Mom'd been bemoaning missing out on family things by not being on, and I said, "If you want, just get on Facebook through my page. I don't care."

So she took her laptop and typed it in and started perusing my wall, till she came across a political post she did not appreciate. Did not cotton to. Did not care for the cut of that Facebooker's jib. "How do I leave a response?" she asked. And that is when I took FB away from mom.

I took this photo of The Poet's dinosaur bag to show Ned, and then I never did. Please see: Ned is in Chicago Being President-y. But now you can all see it, and congratulations. Please see My Readers Aren't Presidents of Anything.

Speaking of readers, did I show you this? A bunch of readers got together and got this artist woman to make a needlepoint of my Luis! Oh, Lu. Look how she got every detail right. That's just where her ears fell. And her little Pitty jaw.

Here's what I do when there's sadness. I feel sad at the TIME, but then I rally and I'm all okay, I'm okay. I can do this. Let me just adopt a Stanley or something. And then I feel bad months later, for a really long time. I have a delayed reaction, and it's worse the second time. Like, my grandmother died, and I still feel the impact of it, whereas at the time I was all, oh okay. I can do this. I can handle this. And then it turns out, no you can't.

That's how I feel about Lu. I feel worse now than I did when she died. I hate fucking grief. I think we're better off not liking anything. And that's why your blogger is a tramp.

How did I go for a thousand words about nothing? If a blogger types a thousand words, then why can't I say anything resembling anything? These words will never show the you I've come to know.

And that's why this blog post is a tramp.

Pit act-shun

Published on October 24, 2016April 15, 2017 by June37 Comments

Today's another Astonishing June-Hair Day.

Iris can't even look at me. See what I did, there? I really need a new back door. The bottom's all rotted off, and have I mentioned how broke? What unexpected car purchase? What two trips to Michigan in one month? What vacation to the beach that I can't really afford? Oy.

I realize you don't feel a bit sorry for me.

Anyway, the weekend. What'd you do? One of you wrote me, I think it was on Pie on the Face, to say you had big hair, and tried to tell your husband you had June Hair, and he was all, "?"

People just don't understand. You know what we all need to stop saying now? "The struggle is real." Let's all stop. Let's also stop saying, "I'll just leave this here" when you post something on Facebook.

Maybe it's not that my hair is big. Maybe it's just cranky.

Anyway, my weekend.

On Saturday I woke up with nary a plan, and I gotta tell you something: I love living alone. I think I even kind of love being single. There is nothing more wonderful than waking up and realizing that, as long as you don't spend much of the $156 you have till Friday, the world is your oyster.

Okay, that sounded depressing. But still. So I had plans to vote, to make America great again, pfft, and get cat food, and once again I promise you I woke up happy even though I'm just a poverty-stricken old maid cat lady. THE POINT IS I got online and realized there was a Pit Bull Awareness Day walk downtown. I got right on the horn with Bitchy Resting Face Alex and we went down there.

BRF Alex has a pitty mix, with a big pitty smile, and he was so good on the walk. Edsel stayed home. I felt guilty, but you know how he'd have been.

WOOF! WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF!

RRRRWOOOF! RRRR! WOOF!

So.

Here's BRF Alex doing her impression of the mom in Cat in the Hat, with big black Harper. Anyway, we walked a three-mile loop downtown, for what reason I don't know, and I was thinking we should have been singin' songs and carryin' signs, mostly say hooray for our side. Stop, now, what's that pit.

We started at ended at this brewery, conveniently, so after everyone went in with their pitties and had a beer. It was really all you could ask for on a blustery fall afternoon.

A warm bar with wood floors and exposed brick, beer, and pitty pit pits everywhere you look, just getting along and being wide-headed.

I admired our tableau of drinks: sparkling rosé, because someone can never blend in, beer, and a water dish for dogs.

I was not at all obsessed with this five-month-old pitty puppy with pawses, whose name was Chunk. They think he's a pit/mastiff mix. "I hate Edsel," I announced to BRF Alex, slugging back my manly sparkling rosé.

Afterward, I walked around downtown, and in your Big Book of June Events, you may recall that Ned used to live downtown, drivin' all the old men crazy, so I spent an hour strolling around half-drunkenly after my one wine, walking to bars and restaurants that Ned and I had been to, and then past his apartment, which was two inches from the railroad tracks. We had a lot of train sex when he lived there, because trains would go by every 14 minutes or something. I was just remembering that when…

Goddammit. I considered hurling myself in front of said train, but did not.

On Sunday, one of the Alexes who doesn't work at work anymore came by for a few hours, and I took zero pictures of her, so you're just gonna have to believe me and not think I'm just a sad old woman making stuff up. I cleaned the damn house, so it'd be tidy while I'm out of town this week, which makes no sense, and then a lot of this happened while I watched the Mary Tyler Moore Show for hours on end:

Also occurring was this:

Not to mention:

Act-shun, I wanna live! Act-shun I got so much to give. I wanna give it, I wanna get some too.

It's been awhile since we enjoyed that video together. Let's do so now.

I want you to know this never gets old for me. Never. Her hair, her fine outfit, hearing someone actually sing, "act-shun," the excited audience, and mostly her fine dance moves.

Whenever you read me, I want you to picture disco balls glimmering at you from now on.

I gotta go. It's time for my horn-solo dance part.

Lovin' the nightlife-ly,

June

June’s milkshake brings all the calves to the yard

Published on June 27, 2016April 15, 2017 by June

"Oooo! I know!" I said to my friend. "Let's drive out to the country to that ice cream place, where you can pet cows and eat ice cream they made right there on the spot!"

For me, there's a whole afternoon. There's a black-and-white cat who lives there, and I think it's so cute they got a cat with cow colors. And there are Border Collies, or were. Now there's just one who lopes around without a care. Also, peahens.

AND COWS!

So we went.

I don't even LIKE milk. Wouldn't it be awful if you produced milk and you didn't even like it? She asks tens of readers who've had kids and produced milk all over the place.

Oh, it's lovely there. I ordered the kids size, meaning, apparently, they give a scoop of butter pecan that is the size of a child between the ages of 18 months and 11 years old. Then you get to sit on chairs and eat your ice cream while grownup cows meander across the street, and the Border Collie lies in the middle of the road.

Alternatively, you can go kiss the BABY COWS! Guess who I was obsessed with. Was it old brownie, here, wif her eyelashessses? Was I obsessed at all? Was I an idiot? Did I knock a few kids aside who had the nerve to want to come near my new baby cow baby of all babies?

Caffie be cute.

Oh my god. I was obsessed with her. Did I mention?

do Caffie look hot?

The whole time I'm writing this, I have the back door open, and that is not a euphemism, and as I write I hear {quiet} {quiet} then GLUMP GLUMP GLUMP {quite} {quiet} GLUMP GLUMP GLUMP. The dogs are doing their full-speed circle around the yard, and when they hit the deck they galumph across it, then tear across the rest of the yard, and soon they'll both burst through the door and drink 79 gallons of water and tear out again.

The point is, I act like I don't already LIVE IN CHAOS and here I am thinking, I could totally get a brown cow baby.

O, you culd. Caffee agree.

Cow selfie. It went well.

Anyway, it was a good day at the creamery. I was nuttery. And that's a surprise.

Everyone's in now. This whole back room is all, "Henh, henh, henh…" Oh, they just went back to the water dish. I'll bet it's tidy and not at all splashy around that dish right now. But yeah, get a baby cow, June. Good plan.

So that happened. And then we went to dinner, and at the restaurant they were playing all grunge songs, like they had some kind of "Gritty Soudns of the 90s" soundtrack on their Pandora or something. But then, after about a hundred SoundPearlPilots songs of Nirvana, they broke into Led Zeppelin.

"What is this, the soundtrack of my life?" I asked, because hey, June, try to be more self-centered. "First we're in Seattle and now we've gone to all the high school basement parties I ever attended."

This got me thinking about if I were going to make a soundtrack of my life, what songs would I put on there, and it's sort of riveting to mull. Here are a few I've thought of so far.

Swear to god, this is the first song I thought of, and it's a jingle, and you know, Laura Ingalls Wilder's soundtrack would not include a jingle. But I can hear this playing from the living room TV while I tried to sleep in my room down the hall.

Anyway, it's kind of a fascinating thing to think about. The soundtrack of one's life. So far I'm at toddlerhood, where I was between 18 months and 11 years old.

Also?

Oh, shit, Lottie's crying. Gotta go break that shit up.

lotEE good! she totlee good! she go bak out now?

[Intentionally left blank]

Published on June 24, 2016April 15, 2017 by June

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

It was the 3rd of June another sleepy dusty Delta day

Published on June 3, 2016April 15, 2017 by June85 Comments

Were you worried I'd forget it was Ode to Billie Joe day? The official holiday of Bye Bye, Pie ever since we all became obsessed with that song?

Did you listen to all the things they eat for lunch? Hello, carbs. Hi hi, another piece of pie.

I have to kind of hurry today, a thing that makes Faithful Reader Paula nervous every time I say it. She reads fast so she won't keep me. I have to go chop cotton while my brother is balin' hay.

When I'm not bizarrely living on Choctaw Ridge, Lottie has to go to the vet this morning before work. We're trying an exorcism this time.

Bah.

Really, it's her shots. She's getting more shots. In her case, I feel like "shots" mean she'd chew a leather strap and actually get shot with a gun and not care.

Here she is in a rare docile moment. Note they'd pulled that bed all over yonder with their shenanigans, before this picture was taken, and chewed out the stuffing. I was busy hurling myself off the Tallahatchee Bridge.

weeee dossil

Anyway. It's been a big week at work. Two of the four things that were due–no, wait. Three of the five things that were due have been done. Today I just gotta wrap up two of them–crap. Three of the six things that were due are done.

I'll stop there before you don't wanna do much of anything. My readers caught a bored-with-June virus and they died this spring.

I need to get over that song.

I will never get over that song.

Anyway, so it's busy at work, and this one guy I work with said yesterday, "Now that we work together every day, I have this fear that I'll show up one day in your blog. 'Oh, Bob was a real asshole yesterday…'"

Does that even sound like something I'd say? He should know the only asshole is Lottie.

"I like how you've blog-named yourself 'Bob,' quite possibly the boring-est name in the history of time," I said to him while I tried to work at the same time. Really, all conversations with me this week are me slightly to extremely crabbily staring at my computer and typing while we spoke. It hasn't been pretty for anyone.

"Yeah, you're right. Don't call me Bob," said Bob. "And don't take my picture."

So I didn't. I didn't take Bob's picture. And I didn't call him Bob.

I guess the weekend is here already. That was fast. And not at all stressy. The good news is, the fireflies are here, which is my favorite thing, and last night I heard the first cicada. Oh, how I love to hear the cicadas. Although I don't really know if I'm hearing them or katydids. They sound the same to me.

I've done a terrible job hurrying up.

I'll let you know if they get the devil out of Miss Jones, over here. And also I'll alert you to her weight. When she was at the vet last time, she weighed 8.5 pounds. That was three weeks ago and I feel like she's weighing in at 150. So.

mom honistlee think she can fuk wif lotteee? honistlee? oh mom just wate.

She likes to bring in sticks and also whole branches with leaves, and also pine cones. Lottie is a pleasure of life. With an oversized Easter Island head.

Y'all remember to wipe your feet.

Purple robe, purple robe

Published on April 22, 2016April 15, 2017 by June52 Comments

I just sprayed root cover-up on my legs instead of tanning stuff. Hashtag being a natural woman is hard.

Edsel doing his guillotine impresh. One day this needy animal is gonna snap his head clean off.

I realized it'd been two entire years that I'd taken the cats to the vet, other than the time I rushed Iris there because I was trying to kill her with flea meds, so I made an appointment. Because I haven't given that place enough money lately.

Since the beginning of the year–and did you know it was January 1 that Talu first peed in the house? I had felt guilty because I thought maybe I'd been up too late and slept too long and there she was waiting for me to wake up and she had to pee on the floor. Anyway, since the first of the year, I've gotten to know that staff pretty well. So I was kind of excited to see everyone.

First, I had to put everyone in the kitty carryall. See what I did, there? Little Brady Bunch reference for ya.

My cats are not as nightmarish to put in a crate as others, and I am not at all thinking of Francis. Who required that you put on a HAZ-MAT suit and hawk gloves and get your affairs in order.

It's funny, that picture is right where I'm sitting now. With a different desk and a whole nother set of cats. The hatred still exists, though. I've never noticed his OTHER angry foot before this. And look how just, like, chunks of things have flown off him. Chunks of hate. He was swinging at poor Lu, who Marvin was holding.

Anyway. I got Lily in there first, no problem, and then I was Leonard Nimoy: In Search of…Iris. Was she sleeping in the linens? Welcome to my home! Here're some hairy sheets and a fuzzy towel. Was she in my bed? Welcome to June's House of Discipline.

She was in the back yard, sleeping on the outdoor furniture, as she is wont to do.

She also went in there without incident, but as soon as Lily had someone to complain to, here is what she said for the next 1o minutes while we drove to the vet:

"MEOW! MEOW! MEOW! MEOOOOW!! MEOW!"

She also added, "MEOW!"

Lugging these two cats to the car was relaxing, but I got them in there, and you won't believe this but Lily said MEOW, and when I was at a red light and could look in the carrier, not only was Lily caterwauling (get it?), but Iris's nose had turned bright pink and she was panting like a dog. It looked like fun in there.

"MEOW!"

We were maybe a block away when Lily decided, Hey, now might be a great time to pee all up in the crate, and while I'm up, why not drop a couple of logs off, as well?

Iris panted.

I brought my meow box into the lobby, where Marilyn, who always wears a snake necklace, greeted us. I like her. "Ooohhhh, Iris looks a lot better than last time she was here." At this point, Iris's tongue was magenta and she looked like a husky, with the panting.

"MEOW!" added Lily.

We got to a room and let them out, and the vet tech and vet exclaimed over how pretty they were, and you know how I am. I act like I knitted them personally. Iris wasn't too keen on leaving said crate, so we had to tip it up, and that is when Mrs. Brown and her friends rolled out the barrel.

"I'll clean that up," said the tech, whose job I do not envy other than the getting-to-kiss-kittens portion.

"I'll put the blind one on the floor. I don't want her to fall off the table," said the vet, handling Iris like she was the Magna Carta.

"You don't have to be all gentle with her, she's good," I said, to deaf ears, as the vet sat her on the floor like, "Iris, this is the floor. It's under you. CAN YOU HEAR ME IRIS" oh my god.

Turns out, everyone's fine, and you won't believe this but there's only a pound of difference between sleek Iris and Lily, who Ned calls the Round Mound of Meow. It's some sports joke. I don't know.

$280 later, we were all set. They got their rabies tags, and I really should have remembered to spray shaving cream around their mouths for the visit. Next time.

scru mom and vetz.

Look at Lily, all daring on the dog bed. Lillee been threw the chit. she do not feer dawg.

Also,

yay, I…you know, guess. Talu's ashes are here. "You turned our dog into a speaker?" Marvin texted when I sent him this picture. The whole package was nice, though. They had a card and in it were some additional materials, including a thing on grieving I totally identified with. They said it's normal to hear the click of nails on the floor or to think you see the pet out of the corner of your eye, which I totally have.

They also had another card in there with a dog-shaped paper on it. "Plant this and wildflowers will grow in memory of your beloved pet" the card read. I so want to do that. How do you plant wildflowers? I mean, where? And should I buy dirt? Tell me.

And finally. In summation. To conclude. I feel terrible about Prince. We're all wearing purple today at work. I fucking loved Prince; I loved him when I was 15 and Dirty Mind was a record, and I never stopped. I saw him in concert twice, and oh my god, the charisma he had. I think I still have my Prince concert t-shirt somewhere.

I'm so glad my old movie theater showed Purple Rain a few summers back. The place was packed, and we all knew what he was talkin' about so we went on and raised our hands during Purple Rain. They turned on purple lights during the finale of the movie. It was great.

I wish he could have seen it.

P.S. Just when I put on my purple clothes, it started to rain.

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: