Iris is dead. I cannot talk about it.
Here’s the last picture I ever took of her, on December 20. Oh, Iris.
Horrible
Category: My pets
Catch up on June’s…animals (ya got all weekend?)
Before I begin delighting you all with pet speak, lemme tell you what just happened.
These past two days, I’ve been tryina keep up with reading blog comments, but it’s not easy. I tried looking at them here, not in email, and one thing that’s irking me is the comments are in order from oldest to newest. So every time, I saw the same comments and had to scroll endlessly.
From my phone, I tried to mess around with my comment display on WordPress, and you’ll never guess what I found.
Apparently, there is someplace on my blog (not blog) that tells you, a faithful reader, that if you click here you can send a personal message to June, and that June will know this and read it.
Except I never knew this place existed till an hour ago. If you sent me a message there and you were all, What a bitch, you were right, but not about the part where I didn’t answer you. (And in fact, even if I had read these as they came to me, there’s no Reply button.)
I sat here for a whole hour reading messages y’all have sent me since day one of me being here on WordPress. And with no Reply button, I had to sit here going, “No! I didn’t block you on Facebook” and “I’m not an admin on Facebook of June!” and so on. Oh my god, it was like a nightmare! There were sweet comments and mean ones.
My favorite was the person who said, “Are you ever coming back? Because frankly, I’m getting tired of checking here all the time.” Well, if I wasn’t tempted to return before… Apparently, it’s right up there with brick-laying, checking over here.
What most of your messages were about, though, were why I’ve blocked you or refused to let you comment or go on my Facebook page. Every single person who wrote was someone I (a) didn’t actually know and had no hard feelings toward (2) did not block in any way from any portal of my life.
One lesson I offer is to not take things so personally. Because I left Facebook months ago of my own accord, and I stopped writing here months ago of my own accord, and it was not about you, 50+ people who assumed it was.
“JUNE. Why did you block me on Facebook?!”
“JOOON. I can’t see new posts. Did you block me from your blog?”
“JOOOOOB!!! Why won’t you let me into Pie on the Face? Why did you kick me off Pie on the Face? Why can’t I find Pie on the Face?”
So, in summary:
- I can’t block anyone from seeing this blog, or new posts on this blog.
- I am not on Facebook at all. I did not block you personally; I blocked myself from the whole organization.
- I am not on Pie on the Face, I was not an administrator of Pie on the Face for a very long time before I left, and it’s not called Pie on the Face. It’s called (Face)Book of June.
Good gravy.
Oh, and
4. Don’t contact me via that Contact Me thing, wherever that is, because I don’t know if I’ll ever find it in the bowels of WordPress again! That was nightmarish, seeing all those messages I blithely didn’t respond to!
I suppose I should figure out how to remove that, along with the Amazon link that no longer works. Oh, June. Blogging was supposed to be fun.
Okay, onto my pets.
When we left each other, handing each other our yearbooks and swearing we’d be friends forever, 2 Good 2 Be 4Gotten, I had Edsel, Lily and Iris. Steely Dan was missing.
And he still has that loose tooth.
Steely Dan is still missing.
I can’t even stand it. I left a note for the woman who bought my house, saying if an all-gray cat wanders onto her roof, he’s mine. I’ve checked the shelter 900 times because of course, I’m at the shelter 900 times a week. Or I was. For I was still fostering up until the very, very last minute of my move (they were kind of dicks about that, which I’ll tell you about further down).
In June, and who isn’t. Hrrrrrr. That was supposed to be a June’s hot love life joke, but IN JUNE, the shelter had me foster three ferals, and they broke my heart the most of all my fosters.
Because they started out terrified
and ended up being the sweetest three kittens you ever saw. They were so nice!
And how it works when you foster is this: You take them home for a week or two and medicate them if they need it and also fatten them up, like veal, then you go back to the shelter and they get booster shots. If they weigh two pounds, they’re officially adoptable. And for these three little shy muffins, they made it to two pounds way too fast for me. I was just getting them to trust me and then they were back on that adoption floor. I was haunted by the idea that they’d go back to terrified, but fortunately, you can refresh the shelter’s “adoptable cats” page like an obsessed person, and as soon as they’re adopted they leave the page, and they all found homes REALLY FAST THANK GOD.
So that ended well, but it was a rolly coaster, as one of my relatives would say.
Then at work, one of my favorite coworkers died very suddenly, in her sleep. It was awful. I’d been kibitzing with her on Friday and she died Sunday.
So my response? I got a kitten and named it Leonard, which is her last name.
And you remember the part where Edsel adores kittens? And how NINETEEN KITTENS that I can think of have passed my door this year alone? And he’s lived for them all?
He hated Leonard. I mean, he wasn’t mean or anything, but the first thing he did when I brought Leonard home was hide behind the toilet. He spent the next 10 days behind the toilet. I kept “giving it a few days” and there was Edsel, Eau de Toilette, getting tanked. He was flush with fear.
He was Kohl toward that kitten.
Eventually, The Copy Editor Who Sits Behind Me came over, took one look at Leonard and took him home.
And guess what. Leonard CONSTANTLY bites her dog. Like, he’s just a terror to her dog. She’s tried everything and is hoping he gets better with age. Not biter with age.
Eds knew.
As soon as Leonard was gone, I heard a screech in the night.
SQUEEEE!
MEEEEE!
SKEEEE!!!
“Did you hear that?” I asked my neighbor, fmr., who has a very cute cat named Oscar that Iris basically tried to kill.
“Was that a kitten?” asked my neighbor, fmr.
‘Twas. And for the next 87 nights, we sat outside of bushes and kneeled under his deck and carried on trying to get this bitty kitten to come to us, as it was clearly under duress, because did I mention
MEEEEEEEEEP!
It was so sad. I eventually put an ad on NextDrama, asking if anyone had a humane trap, and met a very nice retired math teacher who did. You can imagine the lively math talks he and I had.
Night after night I’d put canned kitten food in there like an asshole, and night after night I’d watch that slip of a kitten go in, eat the food, and walk right back out because he was too light to trip the trap.
The happy ending to that story, much like my massages, is that kitten never did get trapped but got totally friendly and up close and personal, and my neighbor, fmr.’s brother took that kitten and he’s a big friendly gray cat now. I mean, he always was a gray cat. You know what I mean.
The summer ticked by and right when I was in my OH MY GOD MY HOUSE SOLD IN A MILLISECOND drama, the shelter called. They had three two-week-old kittens, and could I take them, and bottle feed them, and teach them to poop and pee, and
I
SAID
YES.
It was about this time that I convinced self that I am chaos junkie.
They were so boopy and teensy at first! I put them in a laundry basket and they slept next to my bed. At first I’d get up in the night and try to bottle-feed them, but then I read if you feed them a bunch during the day, you can sleep through the night and I said Oh thank god.
Their mother had been hit by a car, so I had to be their mom, and that involves stimulating their pee parts till stuff comes out, and it’s not necessarily as tidy as you’d like that process to be.
After weeks of mixing up formula and bottle-feeding them 20x a day and making them poop and keeping a warming disc constantly warm and JUST TRYING NOT TO KILL THE KITTENS, they stopped being personality-less lumps and started being fun.
Edsel’s such an asshole.
For six weeks, these three were at my house, just getting more adorable by the minute. Meanwhile, I’m tryina pack shit, and having three teensy kittens in the way was not great. I kept them in their concrete floor room when I packed, but eventually, I had to pack that room.
And that’s where the shelter sort of disappointed me.
Because often, in fact, every other time, if I took my fosters in for their booster shots and they weighed, you know, 1.8 pounds, they’d take them from me and make them adoptable. I was maybe a week from moving, I’d spent SIX WEEKS feeding and pooping and socializing and caring for these kittens DURING A MOVE, and when I
STEPPED
ON
THE
YELLOW
ONE
I called the shelter. And when I took them in, they said, “They aren’t exactly two pounds yet. Can you take them back with you?”
I had a friend at work who was definitely taking at least one. And I really couldn’t take them back. A mover was coming to get furniture out of that kitten room the next day. The boxes were sky-high in my house. It wasn’t safe there anymore, really, and I had too much to do.
So instead of saying, Oh, thanks for the
SIX WEEKS
of paying for food and litter and bedding and formula that cost $900 a can and for not sleeping, instead of saying thank you for all that? They took the kittens and huffed away.
Honestly, I felt horrible.
I felt terrible for the kittens, and I felt like I let the shelter down, even though that was by far the toughest foster I ever did.
They were ready for adoption in like two days. And my coworker took the yellow one and the black-and-white one, and someone snatched up that tortoiseshell, thank god.
Which brings us to today.
I can’t foster here at this house, because there’s not a good room with stupid concrete floors that I can shut off, and after that last experience I’m a little…reluctant to help the shelter.
So last weekend I found myself missing kittens, and I went to the shelter just to visit. I’ve done that quite a bit, actually. Just go say hi to cats, pet them, get some strange and come home.
But on Sunday, there was one I really liked. He’s buff. Not that he works out. He’s buff COLORED. And he was so chill. He has a little white tip on his tail.
I left him at the shelter, figuring he’d get adopted that day.
When I looked at the June’s OCD shelter website on Wednesday, he was still there.
So I drove there Wednesday.
Turns out they were having a sale. Kittens are normally $75, but they were $13 that day. According to my maths, that’s 900% off.
And that is why I am the proud owner of an 11-week old kitten named Milhous. Get it? Do you? Milhous? Cause I live in a…mill house?
Iris and Lily’s souls died months ago. They’re like, nother kidden. hooo care.
So now you’re up to date on my animal sitch.
We’ll talk soon. Be sure to write in and ask why I blocked you from Pie on the Book.
Furrily,
Juan
Oh, you know. Just cats, The Simpsons, and blender-licking.
Some nights, Edsel is just too much. With the flumping dramatically off the bed whenever I move a corpuscle. Then floomping back on a minute later. With the pressing his head on my neck as hard as he can, for pets. At 4 a.m.
So some nights I kick him out. Last night was one of those nights.
But I let Lily stay, which I rarely do, and last night I was reminded why.
Good lord. This cat has some sort of disorder. Some sort of friendliness disorder. You don’t get a cat so it’ll be friendly. You get a cat so it can lie sleekly across the room and glare at you.
“Yes, I’d like to return this cat? Yes, I do have my receipt, hang on. …Well, she’s too friendly. Something’s broken. She needs her bitch meter turned up.”
She constantly–CONSTANTLY!!–pushes her head into your hand. You have no idea how hard a cat can push her head into you till you’ve dealt with this one.
Actual, unretouched photo of Lily right this minute, making an elusive trip to the food bowl.
Meanwhile, in the back of my ranch, Edsel was left to his own devices. When I got up this morning, I saw he’d taken my robe to the couch and slept with it. So now I have to walk through this life knowing Edsel sobbed into my robe all night.
I just noticed that Lily has moved on to Iris’s dish.
And while nothing is more interesting than hearing about someone’s pets, let’s move on to talk about someone’s work. Wooo! Lemme get more coffee, June.
Busy, is what it was. I literally got 11 hours’ worth of work done in 8 yesterday, and also my blog post was published, the one I was kvetching about doing yesterday. So that was active. After work, I got my hair done because I was shooting moonbeams out my head and not in the good way. What roots?
I should just give up and go gray. If I didn’t dye my hair and didn’t get Botox, I’d save approximately 12 million dollars a month. But I’d look like hell and hate myself. But, see, I already look like hell and hate myself, just underneath “blonde” hair. I should just officially give up and embrace my inner old lady. Which is getting more and more to be my outer old lady.
One day I will look back at photos from this time and think, “I was so young!” That’s depressing.
You know, from age 12 on, I was under the misguided impression that beauty was just around the corner. That I’d just have to get through this one awkward stage and there it would be: my peak of looks. Except that never happened and I spent my whole life looking eh. Eh, she’s all right.
And now I’m on the downward spiral of age and it isn’t going to get better. Although do you watch the Real Housewives? How can you read this blog and not watch the Real Housewives, is what I wanna know. Anyway, Kyle looks particularly good this season, and not fake, either. So if I become a millionaire, maybe then I’ll start an upward spiral.
Speaking of which, I won a dollar playing instant lottery this week. Do you recall, in your Big Book of June Events, that on January 1 I won $100? And I was all, “It’s gonna be MY YEAR!”?
Turns out, it was really everyone’s year and not just mine.
Still, I hadn’t bought a lottery ticket since and the other day I had a dollar so I went to town on the machine at the grocery store and boom. Dollar. Clearly I am on some kind of streak. When I return to the grocery store–
and here is the part where my mother is shocked that two days have gone by since I last went. “Make a list, honey.” But really, what else have I got to do?
Anyway, next time I go to the store I will buy another lottery ticket with my last one, and this is how they get you hooked. Next thing you know, I’m Marge Simpson at the casino.
Remember when she got hooked on the gambling? What do you mean, you didn’t catch that episode in 29 years of that being a show? Is The Simpsons still on?
To be fair, I’ve never once watched an episode of Gunsmoke, which is the second-longest-running show after The Simpsons. But to be fairer, I was a zygote when that show started, and also, who wants to watch a Western?
There is nothing that will make me change a channel quicker than a Western. My grandmother was forever watching Westerns like they were good. Oh, look. A cactus. And a bar. And someone shooting someone. Say, is that an Indian?
HOW IS THAT INTERESTING?
Plus also, anything having to do with the courts or justice or law or murder mysteries. I just don’t care. I read some Agatha Christie when I was a kid because my Aunt Kathy loved then, and what I liked about them was her Britishness. I wanted to hear how she made a spot of tea. I didn’t care who lay prone in the drawing room.
So what I’m saying is, I have also never watched those Law and Onions or whatever they’re called. And those Murder, SUV or whatever. Of course, now I have no TV, so I watch nothing except binges of the Real Housewives, which is good because it’s reality, everyone. I only watch what’s real.
But truth be told, and pull up a chair cause I’m ’bout to tell you a shameful secret. Truth be told, those housewives shows are getting old. It’s the same thing over and over. Someone gets offended and then 8 episodes are devoted to the one woman saying. “We need to talk about how offended I was” and then they offend each other anew, or a new person gets mad, and really in the grand scheme, hoooo care. I just like to see when they pop into the plastic surgeon for a spot of collagen or when they show us how much they spent when they go shopping together. Whoever thought to always show us the cash register at the end is a brilliant person.
Also, Philip Roth died. Did you hear? I’ll bet he was a real fan of the Real Housewives.
All right, I gotta go. I realize this was a pressing post, but oh! My smoothies come today!
I don’t know how I got to be part of this demographic, but on Instagram I keep getting the same ad, where this hot young girl in her 20s lives in this million-dollar clearly NY apartment and she gets up every day and inexplicably rubs her lips in her bathroom mirror. “Every morning, I do what I gotta do,” she begins, and apparently that involves rubbing her lips. And she looks good doing it. I’d look like I had a nervous tic.
“Then I have one of my smoothies. It feels like I’m doing something naughty.”
See. That’s how hot 20-year-olds think. I’ll show you something naughty, you vanilla whippersnapper.
Anyway, then she gets this delicious-looking smoothie out her freezer, and she makes it in a fancy blender, and then
LICKS
HER
FANCY
BLENDER
and manages to look adorable doing it. Then she kisses her teensy shitty little dog and leaves.
June. Losing readers with shitty small dogs, since 2018. Just get a cat if you need such a purse-sized dog. See above about what a pleasure cats are.
The point is, I watched this ad until I became convinced that if I just got these smoothies, my life would be transfigured and I would be cute and hot and living in New York with a nervous dog the size of a button. Hashtag goals.
I hope that model isn’t real and that that’s not her real dog, cause then I would feel bad. I guess that shitty small dog is someone’s dog, right?
MY POINT is that I signed up to get these smoothies, and allegedly here is a referral link that means you get three free cups and I do, too. I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess you have to buy some, too. You’ll be stunned to hear I didn’t take time to read all about it.
I’ll report back to you on if they’re good. You can choose what kind of benefits you want and they adjust the ingredients accordingly. I chose beautifying, because I want to be 20 and a millionaire.
Delusionally,
Joon
Don’t fence me in
When we last left each other, flush from our reunion, I told you that Steely Dan was injured and I’d taken him to the vet. It turns out, it wasn’t a cat fight. It was a rock lobster.
No.
It was a fence or maybe a tree. They think he got caught in a fence. Like he’s a steer or something. Anyway, in his endless quest to be mysterious, it turns out Steely Dan is really easy to pill. Affable Iris, the second-most cheerful cat on earth (after Winston, fmr.), is an
ASSHOLE
about taking a pill. Evil Steely Dan, who’d just as soon cut you as cuddle with you, is all, Oh. Okay. You can shove that thing in my gullet. Fine. Is there any port?
But here’s the thing. He really. Really. Really. Wants to go out. And the vet has him on antibiotics for a week and wants him to stay in.
He wants out. Though. Is the thing.
And I have to remain ETERNALLY VIGILANT, because he can figure out doors as long as they’re not deadbolted (at least he hasn’t figured out deadbolts…yet. Now he has all this time on his paws to Google it), and so far this has happened twice…
So that’s been relaxing.
Other than my endless parade of animals and their animal drama, today marks 10 years that I moved into this house, and to celebrate, I’m getting a crown.
Taaaa-daaaa!
Dental work scares me. I don’t like it. I’m getting the gas, so I will be fairly oblivious, and that’s for my sake AND the poor dentist’s. I’ve got a new dentist after the whole hygienist-who-never-stopped-prattering fiasco at the last place (if you just got here–heh–I got up all my courage to ask for the other hygienist, and I saw her once, and then the next time I came they gave me the chatterbox again, so I got up my courage and asked AGAIN, and they scheduled me with ol’ Chat Room AGAIN. The End), and he seems pretty highfalutin’ with his equipment and so on, so maybe my crown won’t be so bad.
Other than that, since we haven’t talked in a coon’s age, let’s go see what my photos can tell us about what the HELL I’ve been doing lately…
Do I even wanna know what I was thinking when I took this?
I went to Home Depot, then Lowe’s, then Home Depot again last weekend, because no one else ever thinks to go there on weekends, so it was like a big relaxing cavern, really. I picked up these succulents because I fall for any novelty.
Really I was buying paint and switchplates, but that never stops me from a pink succulent impulse buy.
I also tried to go have tea with my coworker Nefertete, and TEA with NeferTETE was almost too much for me on the cute level, but guess what.
They were CLOSED.
We tried to go to a coffee shop and I want you to gird your loins. CLOSED. Had the world ended? It was Monday at 5:45 p.m.
So we ended up at a bar in a restaurant, and the bartender kept insinuating himself into our conversations, probably because Nefertete is young and hot. And then I choked on my wine, as I am always choking on liquids, and careful readers will recall that I’ve already been knocked out and had a tube down my throat to see why and there’s no reason BUT IT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME. So.
Oooo, and I went to the farmers market this weekend and got my annual plants. These are called frrrrr-deeee-glloooo-de-harbels, and they need pretty much zero care. They feel kind of hard, like a succulent, and apparently it rains just enough here that they thrive in front of my house like this.
I get them every year, and they last April through October.
Then at some point in November I look up and they’re all dying and brown the same way I am, and I throw them out unceremoniously. The way the world has with me.
The point is, while I was marketing like a farmer, the woman who sold me my flowers was young-ish. I can’t tell the difference between 22 and 35 anymore, but she hovered in that general age range. We’d been kibitzing a bit while she rang me up, and she rolled her eyes when she said, “You wanna get hit on by men over 50, this is the place.”
I hadn’t expressed an interest in being hit on, by the way. She said that in response to ANOTHER saleswoman having been hit on.
And right then, it hit me.
Fuck you, men over 50. I mean, really. Fuck you.
Men who are 55 are always going to try for the woman who’s 22. Or they’ll claim they like women their own age but have a leering eye that tells another story.
I know I said a few months back that I’d given up, but right then, at the farmers market which really does not get an apostrophe so don’t get your knickers wadded, right then, I King Kamehameha gave up.
It’s not that I’m not interested in men my age. It’s that I don’t like them. They’re kind of horrible people. And maybe that seems, oh, a tad general, but I’ve been out here tryina meet them since 2015 and have not met very kind men.
They were kind when we were all 32. They were! But I think the kind ones got swooped up in committed relationships. For the most part, what’s out here are men who aren’t good. They’re the evil leftovers. And I guess the same could be said about me, but while I’m flawed, I’m not addicted to porn or leering at 23-year-olds like I actually have a chance.
So that closes that chapter.
I’ll talk to you later, post crown.
Royally,
June
LumberJune
Years ago, I was on the phone with my oldest friend, Pal From MA. She was on her porch, and who knows what ridik topic we were on, but it compelled her to yell, “HELLO, CLITORIS!” at one point.
And when she did that? A woman walking across the street waved.
This obsessed me. I was so tickled, so to speak. It really pushed my buttons.
I mean, was that her NAME? Did her parents hate her? Did she just think that’s what the cool people were doing now, like it was the new Whatup, Homie?
Was she thinking my Pal From MA was offering up some sort of girl-power hello, like the woman bits in me salute the woman bits in you?
Nubaste.
The reason I’m telling you this is because I woke up at 1:48 a.m. today and thought of this and could not stop giggling.
I giggled so hard, and for so long, that Iris, who is usually delightful to sleep with, flumped to the end of the bed, where everything was normal and no one was all “If this bed is a-rockin’ it’s because June is chortling uncontrollably about something that happened in 2009.”
Iris is my favorite cat to sleep with. Needy Lily, on the other hand, is all HELLO CLITORIS, so clingy is she and so hard does she want to sleep inside my soul. Fortunately she wasn’t there last night, because she’s the kind of person who ruins your giggling with, “What? What’s so funny?”
Why do people do that? It’s never as funny when you describe it. It’s the same as, “What’re you reading?” Oh, let me put down my book I’m enjoying and give you a verbal summation. Here’s a summation: You’re an asshole.
Anyway, hi. I know I’ve not been here in a few days.
I didn’t blog at you Friday or Monday because I got yet ANOTHER notice from WordPress that I owed them money and I was irked. I just renewed my ($100!!) yearly subscription with them a few weeks ago, but apparently I also upgraded my account last year at this time, because I needed to transfer over 11 years of blog photos and so on, so I owed on that.
I was giving careful consideration to just stopping this blogging deal altogether, so annoyed was I with this SECOND bill, but then I mentioned that on Facebook, and a bunch of you sent tips, even though I no longer have a tip jar on this blog.
That was so nice, and I was all, oh, I’ll blog Tuesday, and then today Steely Dan got injured.
dun dun DUNNNN
He came home last night, which right there was odd enough. He usually eschews me all evening for god knows what. He’s probably out saying, MEOW, CLITORIS, except he’s fixed. But so am I and I carouse, so.
Anyway, he came in last night during Edsel’s final pee of the night, and he was clearly upset. He was whipping his cat tail, his cat eyes were big and he clearly wanted me to stop fekking cat Yoko-ing him.
Then this morning he was Limp Bizkit. He wouldn’t put any weight on his back leg. I rushed him dramatically to the vet, who tells me SD’s been in a cat fight, and I’d just like to mention that Oscar the fluffy Orange Julius of a kitty next door is also an outdoor cat, and I feel like orange you glad you have a new cat to beat up was occurring last night, and I somehow missed it. How did I miss a catfight? Maybe it was one of those new Silent Bob(cat) fights.
He’s at the vet now, and they called me a while ago using his full Christian name. “Steely Dan Silverman is ready for you to get him at 1:00.” So I’m ready to leave in a second to go retrieve Jack Dempsy, over there, with his antibiotics that I feel like he’ll be quite mellow about taking. Like, Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet mellow.
By the way, there’s a gray parrot at my vet, a gray parrot who meows. As worried as I was this morning, I could not help but be charmed by that parrot. “Meow!” he’d say, lifting his bird foot.
“Mew!” he did a whole ’nother cat voice while he poked at his budgie. This voice was almost kitten-y.
Then he whistled the Andy Griffith theme song to the room at large, and at this point I’m ready to be Mrs. June Gray Gardens Parrot, so enamored am I of this creature.
Meanwhile, my cat died like that little girl in Airplane, where everyone’s singing and not noticing her IV had fallen out.
Oh, he was FINE. He was in his carrier. IT WAS A MEOWING BIRD. Who can resist?
So, that’s all for now. I have much to tell you, including that I was in a tornado, and afterward Marvin couldn’t find me because apparently my phone was out for a bit so I did not recieve his call or follow-up oh my god are you dead text, and then I didn’t blog, so all of a sudden Marvin pictured me under a house with stripy socks.
The house began to pitch, and I’m a bitch.
Anyway, it was nice of Marvin to care if I lived or died. The tornado didn’t touch down at my house, but it sure as hell touched down elsewhere in my city. Tornadoes blow.
Tune in for more of this kind of hilarity and a full Steely Dan Silverman update tomorrow.
P.S. I forgot to ask you: Yesterday on (Face)Book of June, we got into a discussion about what our school mascot had been. Faithful Reader Paula’s kids used to be The Warriors, but that became politically incorrect, and since it was a Christian school, they changed it to The Warriors of the Lord, and I AM SORRY THAT IS EVEN BETTER THAN HELLO CLITORIS.
Warriors of the Lord. Oh, that KILLS me.
I was the Lumberjacks (of the Lord). Those of us who identified as female at my school were called—are you ready? Lumberjills.
Of the Lord.
Goodbye, Clitoris.
Next to the astronaut
Eds won’t stop acting the fool this morning. “Come sit and chew Blu and be a nice dog,” I just commanded him.
Really, I should put off covering that chair for longer. It’s not disgusting enough. I guess if I recover that chair, putting it by the back door again is out, right? I need, like, a mud chair back here. Or, hey, a dog bed. Look at me. The ideas just keep coming. I’m like Ben Franklin.
Anyway, I’m tryina think of things that’re new that I can actually tell you about.
On Tuesday, Ned went to Taco Bell. As you do. When you’re Ned.
One of the old movies was on at my old theater, and seeing as how we’re old, Ned and I decided to go. “I have to get my hair cut first,” said Ned.
My first date with Ned was January 19, 2012. You’ll recall that was a Thursday.
The reason we went out on a Thursday was because when he asked me out for the first time on a Monday and we were tryina make a plan, he was getting his hair cut on Tuesday, so Tuesday was out. I was having dinner with The Other June on Wednesday. So Thursday it was. I do not know why I remember all this.
My point is, Ned always gets his hair cut on Tuesdays. Every sixth Tuesday. I get my hair done whenever I have money and/or my gray roots are so absurd that I look like Shirley Maclaine when Deborah Winger is dying in Terms of Endearment. I know I always use that line, but it’s so accurate.
So, Ned gets his hair done, a phrase he adores, right near my house on every sixth Tuesday. He’s done around 6:00, and the old-people movie starts at 7:00, so we didn’t have loads of time, and I said, “You wanna go to Taco Bell?” and when he said yes, I fell over dead and I’m writing this while lying in the silk. Next to the astronaut.
He got a taco and a glass of water, which did not annoy me in the slightest.
The movie we saw was Raiders of the Lost Ark, and what amuuuuused me was I got home after, and pretty much every coworker I have posted something from Raiders of the Lost Ark on the social media, there.
One guy took a picture of the organist playing beforehand. “Raiders of the Lost Ark on the big screen? Shut up and take my money,” he wrote.
I did not post to any social media about my movie. I’m just taking 450 words to tell you here.
Yesterday I came home for lunch and noticed Edsel’s tooth was loose. That fangy one hanging out. He’s like a 6-year-old human with a loose tooth. Except he’s an 8-year-old dog, and are dogs supposed to have loose teeth? I think not.
So I took him to the vet, which he enjoys 100% of. Even though he shakes once he sees the building, it ends almost immediately once we’re inside. People talk to him and give him treats, he can glare at other dogs who have the nerve to inhabit the planet. Then he gets a restorative treat after. The whole setup works for the Edz.
That crumpled thing back there is a dress I keep meaning to take to dry cleaning. Ask me how that’s going.
Anyway, $78 later, it turns out he has a very loose tooth, and that it’ll fall out on his own very soon. He needed a rabies shot, anyway, so he got that yesterday, and we refilled his Sentinel. As he is a stoic sentinel.
The vet said as dogs age, those bottom teeth get loose. I know Lu lost one down there too. They asked if he liked to chew, and that is when I got to tell them all about Blu.
Turns out, m’vet’s Corgie also enjoys toys from the company that makes Blu. This would be a good time to add one of my Amazon links I never remember to add.
Anyway, that company makes other toys, too, and if you click that photo, above, you can of course go on Amazon and shop for whatever you want. As long as you click over there by using the image or my seaglass image that’s on every page of this not blog, I will become rich.
Also, this is how I’ve been writing you. With this weasel strewn across me. I just write around her. If you knew how often I just write around a cat.
Last night, I went BACK to the old theater and saw Gillian Welch, which was good, except she said one weird thing.
“I had an interesting experience in your city today,” she began, strumming her guitar. Everyone cheered, all WOOOO! Greensboro!
“I saw what’s left of Proximity and Revolution,” she began.
Okay. What was she talking about? I’ve lived here for 10 years. Proximity is the nice hotel I like to drink at. It’s lovely. The only Revolution I know is that cool mill where I get my hair done NOT every sixth Tuesday. It’s thriving. New apartments have gone in there, and new restaurants and stores. It’s humming with activity. What was she…?
Did she just DISS our city?
The whole audience was stonily silent. I have no idea what she was talking about, but it seemed …not kind. Pretty much everyone I know who lives here likes living here. People always talk about how there’s “enough to do” and that it’s affordable and nearly everything is 10 minutes away. Downtown is booming.
Anyway, it made me mad, although I’m still not clear on where she meant, anyway.
I’d better get to the work, and do the work, like I’m RuPaul or whatever.
Current references-ly,
June
Soaring highs, devastating lows
Yesterday was a day of intense highs and lows.
Okay, yesterday I had a high and a low. But everything with me is intense.
I’ve already done my stupid taxes with TurboTax, and I owe every year because freelance. What I parTICularly love is paying taxes and having to pay TurboTax on top of that. And then every five screens they’re all, “Here’s a way you can pay us MORE money!” Yeah, thanks. Cause we’re all not stressed to the gills already, fucksticks. Lemme get out additional bones to toss your way.
The point is, despite buying a new computer this year and painting this room (both deductible), I STILL owed like $1,700.
Last night I got home from work to STILL NO ATM PIN (see yesterday’s riveting account of that), but I did get a letter that said, “Tax information inside.”
“Now what,” I wearied.
Turns out, I got a corrected Form 1098, and I know you’re all nodding your accountant-ish heads. Ohhhh, yes. A 1098.
It’s a form that says how much you paid in mortgage taxes. And as usual, one mortgage company bought another, a thing that’s happened to me at least 4 times since I bought my house 10 years ago. Dear money-hungry people who buy other companies and inconvenience the rest of us: Eat dung.
So I don’t even think I took off my coat last night. I got right on TurboTax and clicked the “amend my form,” added the new info, and now I get a refund.
Someone at some point sat down and wrote that little song. Like, they thought it up and wrote it. And every kid’s sick day from then on would have that song in it.
So that was exciting, to go from owing to getting, and I made myself some celebratory popcorn for dinner as a result and
CRACK.
Broke a tooth.
I’ve never played those two back to back before, and just now noticed the losing theme is the winning theme, just slowed down. With a little “you’re a loser” downward slide to it.
So now today I probably have to have emergency dental work, and why, God. I’m a good per–okay, …yeah, okay. …I see why, God. You can stop now.
The other thing is, I called SunTurst, and I am leaving it “Turst” cause that kills me, and said, “YOU’RE KILLING ME OVER HERE” and the nice man I was speaking to in Jamaica (I asked where he was. Then I pictured, like, Taye Diggs talking to me) said, “May I ask, why did you need a replacement card, mon?”
“I was delivering blankets to the children’s hospital and there was a whiskey sour outbreak and I lost it,” I explained.
Turns out, when you just lose your card and it doesn’t get stolen? Your PIN stays the same.
THIS WHOLE TIME.
I COULDA BEEN USING MY CARD THIS WHOLE TIME.
Bonus-round high, though: Ned bought my Retin-A at the pharmacy the other night because I had no PIN.
It’s a roller coaster, over here.
That’s all I have to say on that topic, and I like how I act like I just covered one topic so far, like I just told you all you could ever need to now about sunflowers, and now I’ll go on to lint.
June starts a new topic. June has one subhead. Just like her topics.
Did anyone ever do something really rotten to you, and you were so taken aback that you did nothing at the time, and you’ve been telling that person off IN YOUR MIND ever since?
Many years ago, I invited several people to my home for a dinner, and one of the guests called me ahead of time. “Frankly, I didn’t want to come to this. But if I do come, I need you to do this and this and this.” She detailed things like, “Hide the cats.”
I was so shocked. Never in my life had I invited someone over and had them be so…not gracious. And all these years later, what I WISH I had said was, “I will spare you the agony of having to come to my home, now or ever.”
Instead, I hid the cats.
Have you ever had that? If so, what do you wish you’d have said? Because even now, I’m appalled that I let someone treat me that way.
I’ll talk at you later. I gotta shower and get attractive for the dentist. This is totally gonna ruin all my hot St. Patrick’s Day binge-drinking green-beer plans I had brewing. [Disclaimer: Have precisely zero plans for St. Patrick’s Day.]
Oh! Wait! I forgot!
We finished our assessment, and Eds is a Protodog.
Oh, well. Thank heavens, June.
Okay, once again they’re saying, “Y’dog’s a dunce, Joob,” but you know, since he’s likely a Carolina Dog? And they are the last of the wild dogs? It makes sense he’s kind of…a pioneer. He’s the Pa Ingalls of dogs.
Here’s his little chart, listing his SAT scores. Community college, here we come. Good lord, the dog is me. Except he’s nice.
So there you go. I wish I could have also given Talu this test. I’d love to compare and contrast. Lottie probably wrote the test and did the HTML stuff for the website.
Okay, talk at you. I know you didn’t really want to come here and I need to hide the cats, so.
Luff,
Jude
Ned and June Put Edsel to the Test
“I have an all-day meeting and I’m getting out of work early,” said Ned, and “early” for Ned means “a normal time to leave work” in my world. Remind me to never be the president of anything. Except this nonblog.
“Would you like to have dinner? I’ll be early, so you can eat like the elderly, as you like to do.”
Back when we were dating, Ned would call me at, like, 8:00. I am not exaggerating for dramatic effect. He’d work till 6:00 or 6:30, go to the gym, drive home and then call and say, “I am starving.” That noon salad just wasn’t sticking with him eight hours later.
How did I not bludgeon Ned to death every day for four years?
So, him calling me at 8:00 meant he (a) was going to go to a restaurant at that point or (2) make something. From scratch. “I’m going to start the water to boil beans.”
Really, how DIDN’T I bludgeon him to death?
What this meant, when we were dating, was I had to starve till 9:00 in order to eat with him, or I’d eat like regular people, at around 6:00, and then have to hear the appalled speech when I’d announce AT 8:00 ON A WEDNESDAY that I’d already had dinner.
Later, I researched love avoidance and said, Ohhhhh. Okay. (It’s one of the things they do. They busy themselves. Oh, I’m so consumed. I can’t possibly actually sit and give you my undivided attention.)
My point is, here was Ned, willing to feed me on a Wednesday at 5:30.
I know you’ve all been lighting candles and keeping charts, so you know that I’ve had an ATM card saga. While I was out volunteering to make smocks for the homeless a few Friday nights ago, I accidentally lost my ATM card when a giant vat of whiskey sours landed in my throat. It was such a phenomenon. It was like the Northern Lights, with sour mix.
It wasn’t even GOOD sour mix. The whiskey sours I get at the fancy hotel near me? They make their sour mix right there. The whiskey sours I got on Lost ATM Night was shot from one of those soft-drink guns. I blame the pinball. I was so up in it that I didn’t notice I was having 49 drinks.
Oh my god, anyway. So I finally got an ATM card from my bank, and when I called to activate the card, they said, “For your safety, a separate letter with your PIN will be arriving.”
You have got to be fekking kidding me.
So now I have this limp ATM card, which at least allows me to go back to my Jimmy John’s delivery habit, but little else. It’s quite confining–and this is Shamrock Shake season! I realize I could drive to the bank and get out cash like I used to with my mom in 1972, but if I drive to the bank at lunch, pretty much that’s my lunch hour, and I keep saying, Oh, I can scrounge up something at home.
Hang on. Ima show you my exciting June’s-ATM-is-useless food supply at the moment.
I said yes to dinner. “After, can you help me give Edsel some tests?!” I asked. Because that’s the kind of standup person I am. You’ve offered to buy me dinner, and my reply is, “Only if you do something else for me.”
“Of course,” said Ned, as he likes Edsel.
Truth be told, I don’t really like going to restaurants. It’s never been fun to me. I have on-and-off years of panic attacks, and restaurants are a trigger for my panic attacks, because you’re stuck there. You can’t dash out 10 minutes later without making a scene.
I’m not in a panic attack cycle right now, I’m just in my regular low-grade anxiety mode that I’ve been in since I’m 8. I had a giant swath of panic attacks starting when I was 19 and ending when I was around 21.
Then on New Year’s Eve 1999, I had another one on a ferry and was tortured with them for a few years, and I’ve been fine since. Knock all of the wood, please.
The point is, because when I’m having panic attacks, restaurants are among my least-favorite things, I kind of hate them all the time. I dislike a lot of things many other people seem to love: Christmas, travel, live music, babies, football, hugging.
But you saw my cupboards. I went to the restaurant last night. Got spaghetti bolognese. Because I’m watching my figure (turn into Queen Victoria’s).
When we got home, we commenced to giving Edsel another of the Dognition personality tests with which I am so obsessed. This time, we tested his memory.
The first two or three tests I gave him the other night insisted I have a partner, with the caveat “if you don’t have a partner, go to our blog.” Well, I’m already HERE and I already watched the introductory video and NO. I’m not going over to your damn blog. Which is what you all say every day, and yet here you are.
So, despite the world saying I needed a partner, sister did it for herself, and it was fine. But since I HAD a faux partner in Ned (you’ve said a mouthful there, sister), I decided to see if it was easier.
It wasn’t.
The way Dognition works is they tell you what aspect they’re going to test that time, using a brief intro video from the guy who most likely invented this whole idea. “Do you want me to wear my hair like that?” interrupted Ned, while the shaggy millennial spoke.
“Shhh,” I said, then inwardly giggled at the idea of Ned with longish bearded millennial Williamsburg unicycle shaggy hair.
After the intro, they guide you to a page all about this particular test. You can either read the steps, or watch another video where they show you the steps. I kind of do both at once.
“Are those guys gay?” asked Ned, as we watched two millennial men play memory games with their trendy large dog who I promise you they refer to as a “rescue,” a dog inexplicably named Kai.
“Kai? Are they saying Kai? Oh, those two are a couple,” surmised Ned, who really isn’t as homophobic as I’m making him sound.
“SHHH. Ned, I’m watching how to do this,” I said.
And, see, there was our problem. Because while I, superior I, was busy learning how to test Edsel’s memory, Ned was too busy mocking the video, and when I got started, he had the
NERVE
to tell me I was doing it wrong.
“What–why are you–you can’t LIFT the cup. That’s cheating,” Ned would say, having not paid attention to one of Kai’s gay owners LIFTING THE CUP during the video.
Meanwhile, here was Edsel.
Eds was SO not into our testing last night. Some of it had to do with Ned and me bickering, and some was the part where you’d show him a treat, put said treat under a cup, then wait as long as two and a half minutes before he could retrieve the treat.
Lemme tell you who 100% forgot treats were ever invented in 2.5 minutes. That would be old steel-trap Edsel, up there.
In summary, Edsel’s memory sucks. They tried to be polite about it, but later in the description they talked about how wolves and feral dogs have to hunt prey for hours, and while sometimes the prey isn’t in site, these wild animals remember the prey’s general vicinity and keep hunting.
“Edsel doesn’t have this instinct,” they euphemized, pretending it was because he was so well fed at home that he didn’t need it. They can’t come out and say, Your dog is sort of a dunce.
“There is no need to worry! It is just one more piece of evidence that Edsel has his own cognitive style,” they said.
Yes. His own cognitive style. That’s it.
I gotta go. I have to get in the shower and get my own style going. I’ve started Retin-A and remember that scene in Sex and the City where Samantha shows up to Carrie’s book party with the raw face?
Veil down, I think.
Attractively,
Jeb
It’s Pi day! This blog no longer has “pie” in its title! So now I’m just berserk!
“Beep!”
“Beep!”
12:50 a.m. it was, and some DAMN beep from some DAMN alarm was going off last night. It’d almost be better to die of the carbon monoxide or the intruder than keep getting awakened with these damn beeps. They always have to be “damn” beeps.
I threw the covers off and got up to investigate. This is one of those rare times I wish I lived with a man. “Go see what that is,” I could command, then roll over, because I am charming and why so alone, you think?
Anyway, I got up and figured it out, and then noticed a shadowy figure in my bathroom.
It was Edsel. Pressed against the tub. The beeps had frightened him, and nothing protects you from horrifying beeps better than the side of the tub.
“Oh, Eds,” I said, and ran in there to hug his shivering self. Usually he sleeps with me, but I wasn’t in the MOOD for Edsel last night. I know. I was getting a migraine. Sue me. What did the poor thing do, with two dog beds, a couch, a spare actual human bed and two cat-clawed chairs to lounge on while I slept?
I think when I lock him out, he mostly just sleeps on the hallway rug half an inch from my door.
Speaking of Edsel, the other night it was snowing and sleeting and I still didn’t have an ATM card, so I was pretty much confined to the home like I was wearing an ankle monitor. Instead of perusing hard-core XXX and big-game-hunting videos as per usual, I checked out dog personality tests.
What’s sad is you know that is absolutely true, that I looked at dog personality tests over something more sinister. When did I get so boring? Say, June, try “birth.”
The test measures five parts: empathy, cunning, communication, memory and reasoning. We did the first three, and will commence to finishing maybe tonight. I was very busy going to see Blazing Saddles with Wedding Alex and her spouse and Ned last night.
For example, I had to yawn several times in front of Edsel, then stare at him for 90 seconds to see if he’d yawn, too.
Turns out, Eds had the empathy. Further down on this result, they suggest perhaps I have a dog who gazes at me soulfully from time to time, and that this means he is “hugging” me “with his eyes.”
That dog does nothing BUT gaze at me. He has an iron grip of death on me, with his eyes. He Yokos me with his eyes. If eyes were arms, Eds would be an octo…pussy.
Then we tested his ability to communicate with me.
Basically, he’s a crappy communicator. The thing is, he knows a lot of words. I don’t think he struggles to read my cues, I think he just gets distracted by whatever’s exciting. He’s a lot like his mother.
Then we tested if my dog is trustworthy, or if he texts other dog moms after I’ve gone to bed.
I had to lie treats in front of Eds, tell him to LEAVE IT, then either stare at him or turn my back or cover my eyes, depending on the test, to see if he’d eat the treat in the next 90 seconds. The only time he did was when I was staring right at him (after an agonizing 47 seconds of dog eye contact). According to Dognition, this meant he’s pretty trustworthy. And you know he is? If I leave food lying out, he rarely bothers it. Tallulah would have digested and passed the food before I walked back in. So.
So that was sort of riveting, and Eds got so many treats that he’s now Violet from Willy Wonka, so it was a win all the way around.
Further reports as developments warrant.
I leave you with nothing but my best wishes and the lingering scent of my perfume, but before I go, I wanted to mention I had to renew my damn WordPress subscription today. “But June, IIIIII get WordPress for free!” Perhaps you do. But in order to add riveting video like Edsel yawning and so forth, I have to be a premium member. So I just paid a hundy for the year.
“June, please never say hundy again.”
Anyway, of course you don’t HAVE to, and maybe you need every dollar, but I’ve added a little donation button in case you want to throw 11 dollars my way to say thanks for 11 years of this boring-ass blog, June (or, if you want to throw 22 or 33 dollars my way, you just change the “1” down there to “2” or “3” or “900.”) (I aim high). I made it 11 instead of 10 because PayPal does take a cut, man. A big annoying cut.
Tips.
$10.00
I’m so glad I switched to WordPress. It’s so much nicer over here, and I have, like, concierge service, since a very tolerant person who works there happens to read me, and all I do is just email her and she hates her life but then patiently helps me. We should all write her boss or something, get her promoted.
And speaking of WordPress, remember you do NOT have to add an email or even a name to comment. I know it says to add those things, but rebel, over there, rebellious one. Towanda.
This opens me up to all sorts of snotty anonymous comments, but all I have to do is block your snotty ass. The other day someone was a tad spicy, and I searched his or her IP address, and there were ALL SORTS of reports on this IP, including, “This person should be arrested.”
Guess who’s block-assed? That is totally a phrase.
Okay, Ima go. I have to go to work and copy edit things, and rush home and give my dog a personality test.
Say, June, try “birth.”
Dully,
Juan
For me, it’s not so much March as Hobble
Rabbit, rabbit.
Why do people say that at the beginning of the month? Sarah Jessica Parker always does (she’s my Instagram friend), and because she does it, I think it’s cute, but all my life I have no idea why people say it.
But isn’t this literally a rabbit, rabbit month? Isn’t Easter this month? My calendar doesn’t tell me.
My mother got me this calendar for Christmas. It’s vintage pictures of dogs, which you’d think Edsel would rip up, given his love for other canines.
Guess who chews it instead.
Anyway, I love an Irish terrier. A friend in LA had two. They were adorable. So wiry! She rode horses, this friend did, and she’d take the Irish terriers to the stable with her, and they were thrilled.
I lived near there, and if you wanted to see my friend, you pretty much had to go to the stables. She once said they should just automatically deposit her paycheck to it.
The point is, I remember going there one night and sitting on the side, there, watching her ride under a full moon, with the hills of Burbank in the background. It’s such a cool memory. When did I go from being a peaceful person to a chaotic one?
Do you think Steely Dan ever laughs, or does he more sort of just smirk?
Speaking of how I need to get out more and stop thinking about my pets, I went to see all the live-action shorts last night. Not that bermudas and gyms were dancing about.
I saw the wrestling competition between madras and culottes!
Oh, can the jorts ever dance. Could you believe?
Speaking of how there’s something wrong with me because I hang around pets too much, I went to the movies last night to see the live-action shorts. Now I’m all set for the Oscars. I’ve seen all the bitches up in there, which is how they plan to announce them.
“And now, all the bitches up in are will be announced.”
The shorts were good, although all of them were incredibly depressing. The khakis pleated with me to nominate them, but I don’t know.
June. Stop.
Really, though, when did “good” have to mean “earnestly depressing”? Can’t we just see a nice story in 20 minutes? This year’s crop included a school shooting in America, racism that lead to murder in the ’50s in the South, more murder in Somalia, and a deaf child whose parents suck ass.
These were not Richard Simmons’ cheerful ribbed shorts, man.
But now I can watch smugly, never thinking, “I wonder what this movie was about.”
Also, at work, they asked those of us who are into movies what we thought would win this year, and I don’t want to cockblock their surprise, so I won’t say which one I am, but they had us each reenact one of the movie posters of the best-picture nominees. Let’s just say I had to lie on the studio floor at work. In a dress.
I’d better go. I had some…trouble last night, in the stomach-al arena, and I wouldn’t go to work at all, but I’m in the middle of that huge project that I do at the end of every month that I launch into dramatically on the regular, and no one would be able to just pick it up and finish it, as I have my own method. So. I’ll go. I’ll hobble into work with my broken bone and queasiness, and no one will notice anyway because copy editor? Who cares?
Unless there’s a mistake. That’s how you know you’re good. When no one notices what you do. It’s odd, but it’s true.
I guess this post about seeing the shorts was short.
March on,
June
