Bye Bye, Pie!

A tail of Henri

The thing is, I'm never gonna care about Ugly Betty. I've seen it a few times, and after every episode I've seen, I always go, hunh. It just doesn't do anything for me. And yet on my Google home page they are always giving me articles about Ugly Betty and that American Ferrari or whoever and I don't care.

I feel the same way about The Office, and I get a lot of references to The Office in my comments and I am sorry to tell y'all I never have any idea what you guys mean when you talk about The Office.

I guess I don't like to watch shows about people who have a bad time at work, because I can get up the next day and do that for free.

Speaking of which, I must go. But I wanted to throw in a photo of Henry, since there was much protest and general unrest and talk of another tea party when I didn't put in a picture of Henry yesterday.

Henry has kind of a baboon butt, I am sorry to tell you, and I wanted to share it with the world.

I just thought of something I should have done. I totally should have taken profile shots of myself in the days leading up to me adopting a kitten, like Dooce is doing in the weeks of her pregnancy. You could have seen my completely unchanged abdomen day after day. It would've been fascinating.

Okay. Off to be told everything I edit is wrong.

I'm free. Freelancing.

Look!

I got a new coffee mug at the farmer's market Saturday. It's exciting.

So, yesterday I noticed Marvin had on a pair of pants I'd never seen before. They weren't big wide clown pants or long stripy pants that came with stilts or anything, they were just normal sort of brown pants, but I'd never seen him wearing them. So I said, "Where'd you get those pants?" And he said, "Pants store."

Marvin is on a roll lately, folks. A question-answering roll.

Other than that I have nothing to tell you. Oh, but you know what I wish? I wish I could freelance again. Oh, I wish it so bad.

I am finding this handle on my new mug kind of hard to grip. It's sort of dramatically high.

Anyway, I freelanced for years. Years. And it seems like that whole time was just happiness and wine and roses and butterflies and light, which I'm sure it wasn't. I know I worked ALL THE TIME, because when you work out of your home clients take that to mean you are available all the time--10 p.m., Sunday afternoons--and I had trouble turning down work at first.

But, oh, how lovely it was to not have to rush anywhere or sit in an office with no work to do, being unable to go home because QUITTING TIME IS AT 5! Who cares if there is absolutely no work! We go home at 5, you hear me!?

And how lovely it was to have cats as coworkers. Francis sat on my lap at least eight hours a day. Everything I proofread was around the body of that cat. When I got a real job again it felt weird to not have him on me.

And my across-the-street neighbor got home around 3 each day, so if I saw her sometimes I'd go over there and we'd have coffee at her dining room table. Right there in the middle of the day like that. And it was coffee with real caffeine, cause who cared when I fell asleep? Oh, that was the life.

I am going to start hoping that I get to freelance and maybe it will come true. DO YOU HEAR THAT, PLACES I USED TO WORK FOR IN LOS ANGELES?

Carp. I have to rush to work now. And yes, I said carp on purpose.

Ding ding ding dingding DING ding (that's me singing Ice Ice Baby)

So last night I asked Marvin, "Do we have ice cream?" and he said, "We have ice."

Okay. Is that the most depressing answer you have ever gotten to that question?

Do we have any candy bars? No, but you can take the bar exam over on the next block.

We have ice. Whatever with Marvin.

At any rate, as you may or may not know, which was a stupid way to start that sentence, because that could pretty much cover everything in the world, I was planning to take a trip to New York with my friend Sleeping Beauty in May. I saved up $1600 to go on my trip, and oh, I was looking forward to it. But given the pretty economy and the state of both Marvin's and my job and the fact that we have ice, I am too nervous to spend my precious $1600 on a trip. So in May Sleeping Beauty is coming here to visit.

This means that I can spend a teensy bit of my money (like $100, folks) on curtains for the living room. Because currently we have the sad Hi, we're renters plastic blinds that came with the house:

What I enjoy most about myself is my ability to center things in a picture. Did I mention my father is a professional photographer?

Anyway, if you can skew your vision enough, does anyone have any good curtain ideas? Keep in mind I like gramma's house in 1946 as my decorating technique.

In our old house in LA we had these blinds with scalloped bottoms that I really liked. I would get those again but they cost 11 million dollars apiece. And nobody suggest I MAKE my own curtains, because have you met me?

Do you like Marvin's cooler over there, like he brings heart transplants to work every day? Maybe I should have removed that before I took this impromptu, centered pic.

I have to go shower, but I also took photos of things blooming in my yard so I will slap those in here now.

This tree has blossoms coming out of the loggy part of the tree. That's the official scientific term. The loggy part.

I have these blooming all over my yard, but whoever planted them had no concept of what colors clash. So there's coral next to red next to pink and it IRKS ME.

Still, they're flowers. You can't complain that much. It's better than big towers of poo growing next to your house.

Did you really think I could go one whole post sans Henry?

And IIIIIIIIEEEEIIIIIII Will Always Love Youuuuuuuu...

Yeah, I gots a Pit Bull mix for a bodyguard. I'm cool.

Tomorrow morning I will actually talk about something else. I took pictures of things blooming in my yard, plus not to mention incidentally I need curtain help. I am trying not to take advantage of my close personal relationship with The Nester. Instead I will take advantage of the rest of you.

Should I hyphenate my last name as Gardens-Topamax or just be June Topamax?

My coworker just told me that she saw a young guy checking me out as I walked across the parking lot after lunch (clearly he has a strange hair fetish, but still). I can see my wedding to Topamax now: our names spelled out in flower Kleenexes above the wedding table: June and Topamax, or maybe his formal name, Topiramate. It'll be nice to be the one who isn't a pill in this relationship.

I wrote this while brushing my teeth

I know you don't feel sorry for me, but I just pulled on my pants and when I went to zip them, they were already zipped. Can I get engaged to Topamax?

Where's June?

Marvin is making me pay attention to him, so I can't post tonight.

I will tide you over with this:

Yes, I am obsessed. Totally. For sure.

Commento of the Weeko. You didn't know about my fine bilingual abilities, did you?

Those of you who couldn't care less about pets will be delighted to hear that I am going to a big Farmer's Market (which probably doesn't need to be capitalized and I am kind of irking myself) with my friend the other June today, so there may ACTUALLY BE PHOTOS of something other than this kitten's every move.

Yes, that is a Jan Karon book being used as a step for him to get in and out of the box. Sue me.

This week's comment of the week is really more of a comment of the weeks, because I was out of town last weekend and didn't get to it. However, I awarded the oh-s0-coveted thing to the same person. I am sorry, but she was dang funny for a fortnight. What do you want from me? Facts are facts.

Oh! And Suburban Correspondent? That isn't true! I do not try to make my hair straight! I use curl-enhancing shampoo, curl balm after, and let it dry naturally without combing because I read that Curly Girl book, and still I get the Prince Valiant look.

Yes, I understand that I just burst into that tangent out of nowhere while you are all on the edge of your seat holding onto your lottery tickets to see if you won. Sorry.

This week's and last week's award goes to Paula from New York, Dammit, who was funny about Earth Day and her dress size on her Amazon wish list. Go look on Special of the Week and you will see I had little choice but to award her both times.

Tallulah has taken it upon herself to monitor Henry's every move without a camera. I think she worries the other cats are gonna kick Henry's teeny arse to the moon, something that is on all of our minds, actually. Except Henry's. When the other cats come around, Lula literally stands over the kitten and growls menacingly at the cats. In two days, she has gone from being a goofy, overgrown puppy to a concerned maternal figure. And yes, they are hanging in the bathroom. I do not know why.

I'm glad Henry has one ally in this house of hisses, though.

Ask Henry and June. Hey, wasn't that a dirty book by Anais Nin?

One of us has the cute hair. I will not name names. One of us has hair shaped like Prince Valiant. I do not know what to tell you.

Let's valiantly page June and see what questions she'll answer for us this Friday, shall we?

Carrie queries, "When my mom and I talk about you, we refer to you always, as Our Friend June, as in, 'Hey, you know Our Friend June? Well, today she had a great tip for cooking rutabaga,' and such.

"We have an creepy amount of things in common: I have an Aunt Mary that makes jewelry, my mom's nickname is Pitty Pat (making her Aunt Pitty Pat to my cousins), I have incredibly big hair, love sparkly things, and incessantly stated that crows would like said sparkly things about anything shiny I came across. Now these are just similarities, of course, but do you think that somewhere in the word, you have a doppelganger?"

What Carrie and I also have in common is that it takes us an hour and a half to get to the point. Which makes me think we must at least be related, if not doppelgangers. And Carrie, I'd hate to think someone else out there got this hair AND this bulbous nose AND this pointy-ass chin. So I am going to say probably not. Because nature can't be that cruel twice. Can it?

Jenene, whose name is fun to type because there are all those Es, says, "Okay, I'm giving in and asking you a grammar question. When I use parentheses at the end of a sentence, do periods and question marks go inside or outside? I can never figure it out, and it drives me nuts!"

Jenene, is the period or question mark part of the entire sentence or is it just part of the stuff you put in the parentheses? That's how you figure it out. Here's an example.

She went to the store (and why does she keep going?).

Now, see? The question is part of the parenthetical stuff only, so it goes inside the parentheses. Here is another one.

Why does she go to the store (and get toilet paper 75 times a week)?

See?  The whole sentence is a question, so the question mark goes on the outside. Now, as for a period, usually the period would not go on the inside of the parentheses, unless the entire sentence was a parentheses.

My kitten won't stop meowing (and he is driving me nuts).

(Marvin wishes I had not gotten a kitten.)

(That isn't true, by the way. He loves the kitty.)

So, I hope that helps, Jenenenenene.

I must exit, because this kitten is in fact meowing endlessly and I do not know what his issue is other than his brain is the size of an olive.

He's lucky he's cute.

Brief update

Am at work, doing that fancy thing where I can email a post. I just wanted to tell you that apparently I have gotten a kitten for my dog, because Tallulah loves that little kitty. It is like that old cartoon with that huge dog Marc Anthony and the teensy kitten. Anyway, they are currently separated because I am here at work and resentlful that there is no kitten maternity program and I just did not trust that suddenly enormous-looking dog not to step on that tiny bite of a thing, and when I left they were on either side of the bedroom door whining at each other. One time Lula got too rambunctious and Henry hauled off and smacked her in the snout, and she was all, "Oh! Sorry!" so I think that two-ounce baby will be leading the pack in no time.