Because I'm sporting my sexy shortie robe, I have spread on this chair the afghan my grandmother knitted for me in 1977. It has a tag on it: Made especially for you, by Grandma. It is the cutest thing. Seeing as it was knitted (or crocheted, I really have no idea) in 1977, what colors do you suppose it is?
Anyway, hi. I know I said I'd catch you up on all the stupid-ass things I've been up to since my retirement in September, and I will do so for tomorrow's post. Today I will tell you about Ned and me and our fiscal responsibility. Before the new year, I wrote down nine possible resolutions, and used a random number generator to pick one. The one that got picked was fi$cal responsibility. How much do you like me for writing "fi$cal"? It's like Ke$ha wrote this post.
Ned has also been saying that we're spending too much money, and by "we" I mean "Ned." He generally pays for dinners and movies and so on, although we do have a tradition on Sundays, when we always always go to a matinee, that he gets the tickets and while he's doing that, I buy the popcorn. No butter. Thank god he doesn't want butter. I don't know if I could LIKE a man who liked stupid butter on his popcorn.
The point is, we go out a lot. And we need to cut it out. So this weekend we lived frugally. We did not go out to eat on Friday, but we did drive to this wine bar that unfortunately had live music, and I am sorry that we are old, but why does every teensy place feel they need live music? I looked around the room, and while the two-person band played acoustic Rage Against the Machine (I am not making that up),
I noticed people leaning into their tables, trying to talk. Why can't the owner or whoever see that no one wanted the band to interrupt their conversations? It's a WINE BAR. We don't need a band. Geez. And get off my lawn.
Anyway, that was all we did, was just go there, and then yesterday I made spaghetti. Now, see, you're seeing me plopping some noodles in water and opening Ragu, which is not unlike me, but no. Yesterday I used my friend Renee's super-secret family recipe, which involved me having to go to the Italian grocery like I'm a cook or something.
I purchased real Italian penises, and they were delicious.
After slaying myself making the sauce, and after it simmered for THREE HOURS, Ned and I had the deliciousest spaghetti ever. It'll feed us probably 10 times, and the total cost to make it was about $25.
der be sawse? and italyin penis? lu need both. otherwise she stay blurreee foreber.
In the meantime, while we smelled what The June was cooking, Ned worked on his model and I did paint by numbers. Last month, we were Christmas shopping and got tempted at the hobby store and bought nothing for anyone but ourselves, because that's what Christmas is about. We figured this was a cheap way to spend the evening, with our sophisticated hobbies.
I had to call my friend Renee over there in Hawaii to get the finer points of her sauce (I have the recipe written down on the back of an envelope postmarked November 6, 2003, and I think that's the last time I made it) and I told her about Ned and me and our plans. "Wow," she said, "That sounds...really boring."
OKAY, Miss Hep Hawaiian Maui Life. Whatever. IT WAS FUN. Below is photo evidence. What I love about these pictures is that Iris and Ned have the same expression as each other in both shots.
Dying.
Here was the view from my perspective, and what you want to start doing is viewing everything from out of my head, cause that's a comfy place to be. I am doing a lighthouse scene, because you've heard me drone on about lighthouses so much.
And, like Visa, Iris is everywhere I want to be. And if you are thinking her little crossy arms do not kill me every time, you are wrong.
I drank the leftover club soda and limes from our party, but there are 45858499349 bottles of alcohol at my house, too. Dear Guests at my New Year's Party: How drunk did we all need to BE, exactly?
Anyway, I got this out and said, "Oh, do we still have this? I'm surprised. Shannon was gone, I heard, it had drifted out to sea." Then I arranged a whole commitment ceremony for myself and Ned sniffed model glue and hallucinated a normal girlfriend.
Ooo, speaking of Ned, today is our two-year email-aversary. Yes, I would break up with me, too, for saying "email-aversary." But this is the first day I picked up Ned on OkCupid, and the day he wrote back, as well. And the rest has been two years of Shannon jokes.
After dinner, Ned tried to find a spot on my couch. Good luck there, Bub. Note Lily on my lap. Yesterday was the two-year anniversary of me getting her. Our cage-aversary. Our shelter-aversary. Maybe today will mark the stopped-reading-June-aversary for you.
So there it is. Our first weekend of not spending the crap out of everything. I will let you know how it goes, if we continue to be frugal or if we cave and go back to hittin' the clubs with our Crystal.
So long-aversary,
June Garden$
