Bye Bye, Pie!

June gets too much fiber. Oid.

Yesterday I told my temporary workplace that I had a Very Important Doctor's Appointment (botox), and that I'd work from home till noon. I was, in fact, working this morning and when I finished one thing and emailed it in, I thought, Oh! It's May! I can change my calendars!

I like to change the calendar. And this year I have a women reading calendar--and why I don't just look in the mirror and say the date so I'd have saved myself the $12.99 is beyond me--and also a dog yoga calendar. One of you sent me the dog yoga calendar and how annoyed are you that I can't remember who did?

My point is, I flipped up the chicks reading calendar, the babes with books, and there on

MAY SECOND

was a note: Botox, 11:15 a.m.

Geez I hate me. I will scowl at myself all day over this, and also will celebrate that as of tomorrow I will not be able to scowl at self.

So I had to scream on over here to work and now I got here and there's nothing to do. Still. Hate me.

In other news, guess what. I have to have MORE FIBROIDS removed next week. Apparently either I got new ones or he didn't get rid of the old ones very well, because RETURN OF THE FIBRI. I realize that made little sense. SON OF FIBROID. FIBROID PART TWO, ELECTRIC BOOGALOO.

Actually this would be fibroid part three, as I had these in the mid-200os, as well. My fibroids are like a Rocky movie. This time I'm having them taken out in Russia.

The good part is I don't need general anesthesia, just an IV that will render me senseless, to which I say, how will we know when it kicks in? And he said an hour after I get home I will feel fine. Still. Could I stop with the growing stalactites now? I told ...friend, if Ima grow things I don't need, can't I hatch golden eggs or something?

You know what I am? Sexy.

I don't know what day this auspicious event will occur but will keep you posted.

I guess that's all I have to tell you. Hope things are going well for all of you, over there. Also, am tempted to add the "Hulk's sex life" category to every single post because it slays me. Okay, that's all.

A story I've been meaning to tell you and keep forgetting. There's ice cream involved.

I don't know why I keep forgetting to tell this story, and sometimes it feels like things like this happen only to me. Well. And the other woman who was there.

Sometimes when I take the dogs to daycare--and they've had a ton of free visits because I drove that one dog to Kentucky, who Dog Days was fostering, and that is how an unemployed person gets daycare, and SUE ME that sometimes these dogs bug me and I ship 'em off to daycare. Whatdaya WANT from me? Have you MET Edsel's insistent snout? With the hey! hey! hey! wet nose pokin' at ya. POKIN' AT YA. All day long? You have not. Well. Some of you have.

wate. it be nose-poke times now?

God, that picture is so them. Lu all mellow, lying her dog head on her arm, watching life. Edsel all, WHAT COULD BE OUT DER? COULD BE GOOD THEEN? MUST.BE.LERT! He is probably .0003 seconds from breaking into barks.

Also, I'd like to reiterate that I am a stern disciplinarian, and the keep-off-the-couch thing is going like gangbusters.

What the hell does that mean? Like gangbusters.

Do you know anyone who can go off on tangents the way I can? Why does anyone read this effing blog?

So SOMETIMES, when I'm awfully low. And the world is cold. I will feel a thrill just thinking OF you. And the way you read. My blog.

Sometimes when I drive home from dog daycare, I am tempted to have dinner at Baskin-Robbins, which is right on our way home, and I have been known to get little dishes of vanilla for Peaches and Herb, over here. And awhile back, I indeed said, Screw it, and went in to get me ice cream for dinner.

I would say my usual "Why so chubby?" line but I haven't done that since I started my Spencer Tracy workout and I am less chubby. It is nice.

So I went in there, all clandestine, thinking about how I really shouldn't be having ice cream for dinner, and as I got to the door another woman, about my age, was also walking in. She had on scrubs. This is neither here nor there, but I wanted you to get a visual. Scrubs, probably my age, a woman of color, and fortunately no one ordered anything confusing and potentially racist this time.

You know WHY no one ordered anything confusing and potentially racist?

Because no one was in there.

The woman and I exchanged pleasantries for a moment, then stood there waiting for anyone to pop out from, I don't know, underneath the counter like Roy Clark did at the Empty Arms Hotel--and it saddens me the geography and math I don't know because I filled my brain with moments from Hee-Haw--or from the back room or wherever.

After maybe two minutes, we started to say to each other, "I wonder where anyone is?" Then we both did the "Hello?" thing, shouting into the cavernous back of Baskin-Robbins.

"Well, this is weird," I said. "I was planning to have ice cream for dinner." I don't know why I need to announce my every move to everyone.

"I was getting an ice cream cake for my son's birthday," she said, eyeing the cakes in the freezer.

"Well, hell, no one's here," I said. "You could just grab one and go."

"I thought of that," she said, looking guilty. "We could have robbed this whole place by now. Are they supposed to be closed?" she wondered.

"Well, it's 5:30 at night, the lights are on and music's playing," I noted, because I am a detective.

"HELLO?" we both said again.

"Screw it. I'm calling," and I got out my iPhone, looked up the damn number for the very business I was standing in, then heard the phone ring, loudly. Then I heard my own voice on their answering machine.

"Yes, hello," I said in my don't eff with me I am a busy executive voice, "I'm standing here in your store with another customer, and no one has been out here to help us. It's been at least 10 minutes."

I heard the "beep" of the answering machine, because apparently it was 1993 in the store, as it finished my call.

"Geez, I hope no one's hurt," said Scrubs, just as that idea was entering my head too. Or what if everyone was being held up and there we were like stooges in the front of the store? At the same time, we said, "I'm going back there," which I realize was dumb. It's like the person going out into the woods in the scary movie. You stay here. I'll go look. You know the next time you see that person they'll be pinned to a door with a hacksaw.

But old Lucy and Ethel, here, charged into the back of the store. "HELLO?" we called out. The two of us were practically Lionel Ritchie, at this point, with all the hellos. We were Neil Diamond. Hello, again, hello.

Still. Nothing.

"Maybe we should call the--" I began when the woman pointed me to the cubicle wall that divided a work station from the rest of the store.

You guys. He was not TEN FEET from where we'd been shouting "hello" 850 times. All that divided us was a giant freezer. WHO SLEEPS THAT SOUNDLY?

Teenagers. Teenagers sleep that soundly.

Scrubs went right over to him. "Wake up, Boo! You got customers!"

You could tell he was completely disoriented for about half a minute. Then he jumped up. "Oh my God!" he said. "I am so sorry! I'm in school and I have three jobs. I ASKED this girl if she'd cover my shift but she wouldn't do it."

He kept saying it as he rang up the woman's ice cream cake and got me my nutritious dinner. "Ladies, I am so sorry."

wat TAKEENG so long?

The worst part is, I didn't even get any free ice cream out the deal. Hello?

In which June forgoes Pieces of Wisdom in order to complain. Oh relax; we'll do it tomorrow. What else we got to do?

Last week I bought a new/old lamp

at my friend Kit's store

.

June. Cracking herself up with the period after the picture since two seconds ago. June, amusing herself with punctuation since the '90s.

I came home, moved the side table from one side of the couch to the other and set up the lamp. Yay. Then I moved the fancy tall lamp to over by the bookshelves. It was quite an afternoon.

Yesterday I got a migraine. Hormones. That's why I got a migraine. Because as per usual, I got sad and weepy and gained weight and said, I have no idea what's going on! What could it BE? Why am I like this? Then, boom. Scarlett has come to Tara. I hung up a picture of Red Skelton. I was walking along the beach in soft focus. If you know what I'm saying. And I used to be able to say this whole mood swing/Red River Valley was a surprise every month, but now it's a surprise every six weeks. Or two weeks later.

June. Telling everyone way too much about her girl time since the last paragraph.

So my point is I got a hormone-related migraine, which is par for the course, although I have to say for the last few months my headaches are a lot better. I have really cut down on caffeine, and perhaps the new wacky schedule at Club Menses is making my hormones less terrible, and really, do you hope I keep going on about this?

However, yesterday I was out of medication and I called stupid Target for a refill (sorry, Target Steve. It's the hormones talking). My head was starting to feel terrible, and by the time I got to the store I was decidedly ill. I stood there at the pharmacy while pharmacists ignored me for 10 minutes. I have never understood what TAKES so long at the pharmacy. Just throw my pills in a bottle and we can go. Besides, I had called ahead.

"Has anyone helped the woman at the counter?" asked the pharmacist, whose last name is Anemone. I know this because he has a plaque with his name on it that you can see while you stand there, and I always picture him kind of undulating and floating, neither of which he ever does in front of me at the pharmacy.

"Oh, I didn't see her," said the seven-year-old who works there. She has red hair, but I am not going to make it into a menstruation joke. Anyway I told her my name while the back of my head started to feel sweaty. I know I am in trouble when that happens. ohhurry, hurry, hurry, I was thinking while I started to look like Elvis in concert.

My migraine meds come in the largest box known to humankind. You could put Mama Cass in that box. And it's so convenient to carry around! Honestly, I don't know what men do who use this medication. Do they hang it from a chain on their belts?

I could see Old Red the Seven-Year-Old pawing through the called-in prescriptions and I saw the huge telltale blue box that spells relief. "There it is," I said to her. She pawed past it. "You just passed it. It's that big blue box."

It's like I wasn't even speaking. I was like a silent movie, and after every sentence a screen with old-timey font would pop up. "There it is!"

I really hate the font choices on Typepad.

After 46 times of me telling her my prescription was RIGHT THERE and her pawing past it like I was in another hemisphere, she found it. "That'll be $289."

WHAT?

I have been paying COBRA--and not a snake who has turned into a musical. COBRA!--since I got laid off, and it's like $5868483 a month. I have no idea why they make health insurance for the unemployed so effing expensive. "We don't have that you have any insurance at all," that ginger-haired tramp told me.

So I PAID the $289, with all my riches, and old carrot top told me I could come in and get a refund maybe next week. Apparently this happens all the time; COBRA the musical takes forever to acknowledge that someone is paying them $5868483 a month.

Oh I was irked. And I desperately needed coffee. Sometimes caffeine can help a migraine when you are not consuming it regularly. Also, I had this dead-tired thing that accompanies a migraine, and I had 11 million pages to proofread.

I went to Steak and Shake, which is in the same shopping center as Target. "One black coffee, please."

"Say that again, ma'am."

They NEVER understand me at drive-thrus here. Am I QUIET? Do I talk too FAST? What? "ONE BLACK COFFEE PLEASE!"

"Ma'am, we're out of coffee."

Out of coffee. OUT OF COFFEE. Come ON! There's a grocery store right across from you! GO GET SOME. Out of coffee.

Burger King sells Seattle's Best Coffee. I know this because there is a Burger King right next to Office Depot where I visit the Office Depot kitties, and I saw a sign, not to get too Ace of Base on your ass. I so prefer Seattle's Best to Starbucks, and it was on the way home, so I went.

"One large black coffee please." "Say that again, ma'am?" Anyway, they at least HAD coffee, but told me it'd be six minutes to brew it and could I pull ahead.

I hate everything. It's times like this I miss living in LA, where it'd be perfectly normal for someone to want coffee at 3 p.m. So I pulled ahead, but there was nowhere TO pull ahead. Just the narrow exit, which everyone who would not serve me coffee was also facing if I DID NOT GET SOME CAFFEINE NOW.

And I have no caffeine here at home. My coffee is decaf with a whisper of caffeine, like when you spray vermouth into a drink. Maybe I just should have gone somewhere and had straight vermouth.

So I sat there, FOR TWELVE MINUTES, in the driveway of Burger King, while giant SUVs minced past me and glared on their way out the drive-thru. Oh, stop driving such big, bad-for-the-environment cars anyway. And stop eating at Burger King. I don't know what's gonna kill you first--the environment you've clogged or your arteries.

I was cranky. And not feeling so well. Did I mention that?

Finally I SCREAMED out of there, turned left, and re-entered effing Burger King. I STORMED back through the drive-thru. "Sorry, ma'am. Your coffee's ready now." Oh, IS IT? IS IT???? Because you told me six minutes and it's now been TWELVE.

GIVE ME MY COFFEEEEEEEEE!

And he did. My large Seattle's Best, and flying to Seattle and growing the coffee beans myself would have been quicker. I realize they don't grow coffee beans in Seattle. Shut up.

So I drove home. And I did not drink the coffee in the car. Because those cups always spill and I did not want to burn myself while behind the wheel. The day had been pretty enough already.

I get home. Get on the couch. Yay. I opened the coffee and wooo! Seattle's Best.

Then I reached over and put my coffee on the side table. The side table, which I had MOVED from that spot to the other side of the couch.

Splat.

Sigh.

 

June likes cats. Story at 11.

I had photos to show you today, of ...friend's cat, who is cute and who hates me. Which of course has nothing to do with the way I stampeded in and said, "HI KITTY! I LOOOOOVE YOU, KITTY! COME SEE ME!" Which by the way is the ultimate technique to win over a cat. I am like Edsel. I cannot even pretend to be cool.

However, when I plugged my trusty iPhone into my trusty iComputer, my photos would not sync. Or sink. Instead they psyched. This resulted in me calling Apple Care, and there's a job I'd be good at. "How the hell should I know what's wrong with your dumb computer? Just punch it."

The point is, as we speak I am downloading or uploading or totin' the weary load and in an hour Apple Care is going to call me to see if we fixed my load. I know! Fancy. I wonder if Apple Care is in any way related to Gwynneth Paltrow's child? Apple Paltrow or whoever.

Oh, but I forgot I had this! Here is a lovely photo of ...friend's cat that he sent me ages ago. His cat likes to put bags on her head, I am not making that up, then walk around for awhile, take off the bag and see where she ended up. You can see how I was unable to be cool around such a creature. I LOVE YOU, KITTYYYYY!

Speaking of my lack of, you know, indifference to the animal kingdom, baby horsie is still unborn. Whiskey Tango Foxtrox? Does this horse not understand my needs? I need to see new baby horsie pony baby.

Anyway, I must go because I have 495959494 pages to edit. Oh! But guess what? In case you are keeping a record, my doctor quit again! AGAIN! This makes at least five I could name off the top of my head, plus the one who killed himself, plus the one who just up and died from being old--Dr. Sherwood B. Fyne.

I give up. Clearly next time I get ill Ima have to go to Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies and have her make me up a poultice.

Okay, really going now. Seriously. I have to read the world now. THE WORLD! If you own something with words on it, I have to correct it. Just hand it over to me now. Gotta get my fly eyes on so I can read eight things at once. I would say more dramatic things re this but I cannot think of any.

Will chat at you tomorrow. Ooo, should we do Pieces of Wisdom tomorrow? What shall we discuss?

Ouch. I know I totally sound like ET right now.

I'm up. I've been up for quite awhile. That's because I went to bed at 10:30. Would you like to know why?

Because this sadistic bitch's DVD came. Note her cruel tape measure. The tape measure that is clearly off by several inches.

In case you did not read the day I announced that I watched an infomercial at 1 in the morning and got right online and ordered $104 worth of workout DVDs even though I am unemployed, please note: I watched an infomercial at 1 in the morning and got right online and ordered $104 worth of workout DVDs even though I am unemployed.

That was several weeks ago, which just gave me ample time to get fatter, and finally this thing--this...THING--came yesterday. When my body still had parts that did not ache. When I could still walk upright. Back then, you could tell from the way I used my walk I'm a woman, man.

No time to talk.

Anyway, so the thing came and it has all this STUFF to read. There are instructions for how to do this workout (i.e., constantly) and what to eat (i.e., nothing you've ever heard of. Today I am going out to get parsnips. PARSNIPS! I don't even snow that that is. Is it like a parson who snips something? Nipples that have been parsed? I don't know. I'm going to find out. And eat it. Because I am effing starving).

First she has you do a "dance cardio" workout--which is basically jumping around like I have hot pokers and cobras on my floor--for half an hour. After you have done that, she actually suggests--ACTUALLY SUGGESTS--that if you are feeling energetic still, you can do the workout again.

I was ready to check myself into the ICU. DO IT AGAIN? Sister, Ima lie down with the cobras and pokers now.

THEN, I had to do ANOTHER half hour of muscle training, which involved me kicking my legs out like a dog at a fire hydrant for 30 minutes. You would not BELIEVE how long you do these leg kick things. You want to reach right through the screen and impale her with a fire hydrant.

This is why 10:30 looked like an excellent time to limp over to the sack last night. And when I woke up this morning at 7:00? NOTHING DID NOT HURT.

I realize that was an excellent sentence. And I have to do the thing OVER again TODAY. And you know I'm doing it. I paid $104 that I do not have, so I am using this thing till I die. Which could be 15 minutes into the DVD today.

I guess I could have stampeded right here and blogged immediately, but I was too sore.

Instead I sat in my back room and had tea. Oh, right. That bitch Tracy Gold or whatever her name is is not  allowing me to have coffee. I can have all the tea I want.

Isn't Tracy Gold the actress who had the eating disorder? That was a lovely and sensitive joke on my part, then. "Just seven hours of working out daily! The Tracy Gold workout DVD!"

No wonder God is punishing me with my life.

Then I read gardening catalogs (my porn) with Tallulah. Please note the ignored laundry behind her.

After that, I organized my vanity. I mean, not my personal ability to be vain. If I could do that I'd never have spent $104 to be rendered crippled. I hate all of those mascaras. The only one I ever really liked was Illegal Lengths and they discontinued it. Please see above re God hating me. And yes, Joann, I have used the highfalutin' stuff, too. Chanel, Lancome, you name it. HATE IT.

Obviously I have high expectations of what I need my mascara to do.

After that, I minced over here--it's my NECK that hurts the most, I assume from the 394858493 sit-ups. Oh, did I not mention we did sit-ups till an alien popped out my marsupial pouch? Anyway, I minced over here and organized all my pictures on my desktop.

Do you have any idea how many photos I take of my pets? I guess you do.

In a bit, I will go out and buy some delicious parsnips. I can hardly wait. Then I will come home and sweat to the Goldie. I have to stop calling her Tracy Gold.

I will write again when I am thin.

Deadline

I have a book due today, so I will blog at you in awhile.

wy you not manigg time better, mom?

God, Lily is such a bitch.

Valentine's Day. Pfft.

My mother sent me this Valentine and wrote, "I'm not sure what the one on the ground has in mind, but happy Valentine's Day anyway." Nice.

My Aunt Mary also sent me some beautiful old Haviland plates that have pink roses on them, and I took pictures of them and now I cannot find the $#%#@@& pictures anywhere up in here and am annoyed. Trust me. They are lovely.

This used to be my favorite holiday. Before life took a, you know, turn and my heart got smashed to bits and cupids started liking anal.

I must run to my interview now, and do you know this is my third interview on Valentine's Day? What are the chances? The first one I had on Valentine's Day was for a major floral company, where I worked in LA. It was one of my favorite jobs ever. I only left it because we moved here like eeediots.

The next year I was working at that job, happy as a clam, and one night the phone rang. It was this company where I'd interviewed the year before and never heard back. "We were so impressed with you when you were here a year ago," they said. "There's another position opening and it pays 11 million dollars a minute. Would you be interested in coming to interview?"

I really wasn't interested, but it really did pay a ton, and it was close to my house, which in LA means a lot, because I don't know if you've heard about the TRAFFIC there. There's this thing they have there with the freeways and the cars and the many many people. I was driving an hour each way to go 16 miles to the flower job.

Plus did I mention the big big pay they were offering?

So I went there, to that interview, and it was Valentine's Day, and people were getting flowers at the front desk that I recognized as "our" flowers from my current workplace, and do you know they had me meet with five or six different people, one after the other, with no breaks and no offer of coffee or water or anything?

I later heard that's what they do to kind of see how you perform in dire circumstances. Yeah, thanks.

Afterwards, I got back to my real workplace, where we all had on jeans and no one was getting flowers because we were flowered out at that place, and it was all so fun and creative and I loved everyone and I said, yeah no. No 11 million dollars is worth it. I loved that job. Did I mention that? Plus it's not like I didn't make decent money there, either.

And now here I am, jobless, having to drive an hour for an interview on Valentine's Day again. The CIRRRCLE of LIFE!

Boom. Again.

I tried to get Edsel to be Circle of Life this time.

Didn't work. He's not so easy to lift.

And no, I didn't get shoes from Zappos. Those are my tax documents. I had my taxes done yesterday, speaking of 11 million dollars.

Okay, am off. Will let you know how it goes. Happy stupid stupid stupid Valentine's Day.

She went off in a huff. Her favorite mode of transportation.

I am on edge lately. I have got a lot going on. I am weepy all the time. And then kind of screamy. What I am is attractive and you're gonna want to spend a lot of time around me. Anyway, I sincerely apologize for being assy yesterday, and for hurting anyone's feelings. 

At least Lily continues to be pretty.

In the meantime, I have an interview Tuesday with that fancy place, and yesterday Tall Boy and I went to lunch at some new restaurant where he had a cauliflower steak. I am not making that up. If I had to be a vegan I would die of boredom. And cauliflower.

Also, I wanted the salad with citrus dressing but I was afraid there'd be grapefruit in it, which could potentially kill me dead. Why I couldn't just get over the fact that they had citrus dressing and ask for, you know, ranch is beyond me. Except ranch makes me want to hurl.

"Does the dressing have grapefruit in it?" I asked the poor waitress who was not really an Englsih-as-her-first-language person. "...grapefruit?" she asked, looking concerned.

So I threw caution to the wind and got it anyway and here I still am so I guess it was fine. Tall Boy got ranch.

Ranch dressing is abhorrent. Why anyone would get that when you could just, I don't know, eat your salad with nail-polish remover dumped on it is beyond me.

Then when I got home, my phone was ringing. It was the receptionist who works where I get Botox. Remember when I was employed and could afford Botox? Neither do I. The receptionist is not what you'd call drinking from the fountain of youth, and she's also not what you'd call someone who has never had a cigarette. I actually adore her voice. It is this really deep throaty sexy thing, if you are into deep throaty sexy 97-year-olds.

"Jooon. Did you forget your appointment?" she croaked. She's like a really sexy Froggy.

"Appointment!?" After you get Botox, which I did two weeks ago when I had a job, you come back in two weeks and they see if you can remotely move your forehead. If you can, AND GOD FORBID, then they inject you again but this time it's free.

I had to scream on down there and wait for them to squeeze me in, because of course I HAD forgotten my appointment, what with waiting to die from dressing and all. In the waiting room with me was the World's Best-Looking Young Man and I was dying (grapefruit) to know what he was having done. You saw men in plastic surgeon's offices all the TIME in LA. Not so much in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Probably he was just there to fix one of the machines. I totally should've asked. "Getting your marionette lines taken care of, then?"

Today I am writing a style guide, and don't you wish your hobbies were hot like mine? But it's work, so I will take it. I will be scowling over it all day. Oh, wait.

I will try to, you know, keep this post up all day. I KNOW I WAS BEING ASSY, OKAY? I SAID THAT. JUNE! ASSY!

Oy.

June=beta. (Tallulah=alpha.)

I recently joined this #$@@%& beta thing? With Typepad? In which they said, "Oh! Join our beta group! You will grow pretty fluffy fins and be red or blue!"

Okay, none of that happened. What they SAID was they're testing out a new photo-plopping thing where putting up photos would be oh so easy with their new beta, and what it's done is SCREW UP my spacing, DELETE chunks of text, which I discover hours later when I look at my blog and it makes no sense, and now today it MOOSHED all the pictures onto one big block and eliminated all my words.

You can imagine the sparkling mood this put me in. And now I kind of want a beta fish, and that is exactly what I need. ANOTHER THING TO FEED AROUND HERE.

Anyway. Unchecked the "Join the fun beta group!" box and now am back to being a goldfish.

What I was SAYING to you, before my life took such a tragic turn, which means the last time I talked to you must have been 2007, is that yesterday I had lunch with my old coworkers, and I went to the grocery store, and also Iris is irritating.

iris haff hemroyds. She sit on downut. hee hee heee hee heeee.

Iris is one of those people who thinks she's funny. Do you know anyone like that? Shut up.

What IRRITATES me about her is that the whole time I'm here typing, she GETS UP on her hind kitten legs and PAWS at me, wanting up. It doesn't hurt, because I cut the BEJEESUS out her needle-y kitten claws, but to have teensy feet paw-paw-pawing at you when you're, say, writing a cover letter gets irksome.

And if she just wanted up here to sleep in my lap that would be great. But oh, no. She wants to get UP on the DESK and walk across the KEYBOARD so my cover letter would be, "I'm writing in respddnfonse to your ad943-- for a copy edi4050tor..." Which is just what a copy editor's cover letter should look like.

The good news is there are actually places to apply to. Way back, you know, nine minutes ago when I was last unemployed, there was nothing. For weeks, there'd be nothing. I even applied at Starbucks, which is apparently the fallback for everyone, because I hear so many people say, "I even applied at Starbucks!" We all heard about how Starbucks gives benefits, I guess.

Oh, and in case you wondered why Iris has doughnuts, I went to the grocery store last night and bought actual things.
I go to to Food Lion when I'm poor, and Harris Teeter when I feel flush. I got $100 in groceries last night, and it was about 4959303 of those annoying plastic bags. It costs $100 for a tube of toothpaste at Harris Teeter.

Food Lion may not be fancy, but they have a parmacy.

The doughnuts were the only bad thing I got last night, and note what the first thing was I got out the cupboard. Also, why do they put .003 things in those plastic bags, so then when you get home you have to make 90 trips? And by the way, the only time I really heartily resent Marvin is when I'm lugging heavy things from the car. I feel like he owes it to me to appear, like Dr. Bombay, when heavy things need lugging.

I know you are sad that I took this with my iPhone and it didn't come out crystal clear. I know how some of y'all like to peruse every second of my groceries. My point is, my cupboards are never. Ever. full like this.

Green apples! (I hate all other apples. All other apples should be taken out back and shot. This is not a veiled threat to any of Gwynneth Paltrow's children, so please, FBI, do not come looking for me.) (It's not MY fault she names her kids after groceries and tablet-breakers.)

Okay, I guess I did also get choclate pudding. Which is kind of similar to chocolate doughnuts. FINE. SUE ME.

In other food news, I had lunch yesterday with my ex-coworkers.

We went to the smartly decorated Thai place.

Vilhelm Oyster was there. Also smartly decorated.

These are...pelicans. I think.

Debb, the one who doesn't want any of us drinking margaritas, ate precisely half of her lunch and kept the rest for dinner. Did I mention she is in good shape? Did I mention the only thing she ever got from the vending machine was gum?

I think these things are for sale. Or maybe not. Maybe they're just making a statement. That cherub is kind of like Iris, bugging that poor woman who already has enough going on, what with the baby and the jeweled reindeer in her living room.

The poet always wears good jewelry that she buys on Etsy. Yesterday she had on a Pomeranian necklace and a horse ring. Note she ate all of her lunch and did not save any for dinner. I did the same thing.

By the way, she owns a Pomeanian. But not a horse. At least she never mentioned it. "Last night, the horse was so cute..." Yeah. It never came up.

Anyway. I had better go and get started on my statistics textbook. I told everyone there was a rule not to bug me with phone calls during the day, because when the phone rings I get excited thinking it's a job, and then it's just some yahoo making sure I'm okay. How nice am I? Why does anyone like me? Anyway, the phone rang this morning and it was Peg, my neighbor, wondering why I was home.

If you see her, she has a big mark where I slapped her with my liver.

Oh, I almost forgot!

lu get you for dis. Waltur.

Guess who got Gently Leadered yesterday? Dudes, it was like walking two feathers. Seriously. Also, Iris is now on my lap. Sigh. Okay, June out.

Time

Well. That's...ironic. My alarm clock came yesterday, right at the point when I will never have to get up for anything ever again for the rest of time.

 Guess who hates everything? Is it me? Pretty alarm clock, though.

Yesterday my phone rang 499449493 times with concerned friends and family calling to see if I am okay (Answer: No.) (Who'd be okay, really? "Oh! Just got laid off AGAIN, for the second time in a year. I'm GREAT!") and by evening I was ready to jump up and down on the phone with baseball cleats. Because as you can imagine I own a fine selection of baseball cleats.

I know I should be glad I have, you know, friends, but I just wanted to be alone, and if the phone was gonna ring I wanted it to be an offer of employment. Not another call with questions I couldn't answer. Why do people ask you things you couldn't possibly answer. "Why you?" I have no idea. "Why do we have daylight savings time?" See above re no idea. And the first yahoo to comment about farmers and take this Q seriously gets slapped with my unemployed liver.

I also did one hour of editing work for Faithful Reader Joann, who was nice enough to throw me a bone, and I considered doing my statistics freelance work, but really I was very busy lying on the couch staring at nothing.

A friend called and asked me to go to dinner, but (a) who can afford it and that reminds me. I guess Ima actually have to buy groceries. What do you buy when you want to save money? Because you know what I buy at the grocery store? Cat food and coffee.

Today my old coworkers from that job I had, you know, way back on Tuesday are taking me to lunch. We're getting Thai and for that I say yay. The Poet, Vilhem Oyster and the woman who sent us all an email about what a margarita does to your body when we were all invited by the Spanish team to go out for margaritas are all coming. You know I like her, even though that's how I always describe her.

That woman has a license plate that reads Bike&Run. I always told her I was gonna get one that read Sit&Eat and park right next to her.

Marvin mentioned if worse came to worse, we could always switch, and I could get a small apartment and he could move in here and pay the mortgage. I had never thought of that idea; his current lease is up next month. But that would mean the dogs'd live here and I wouldn't. Which, you know, kill me now.

Oh! The gay guy who found the old black dog has grown a beard. He just walked by. I haven't seen him walk by in months. The beard looks good. He looked too young without it. See? There are advantages to being here all day. You catch up on the news.

I guess I will shower, and maybe I'll be like one of those retired people who show up everywhere an hour early. By the time everyone else shows up for lunch I will have digested and passed my Thai.

Sigh.

P.S. I keep forgetting to mention that when I had my fortune told a few months back, she said, "I see you in a new job" and I said no, no. I just GOT a new job. Then a few minutes later she said, "No, I really see a new job." So there you go. FORTUNE TELLERS ARE REAL.