Bye Bye, Pie!

Marvin makes an appearance. As does Henry. (Onnnnreiiii!)

Sometimes Tallulah and I like to play "Heavy Cat," where I lift her up and carry her around the house with her legs all askew in an alarmed fashion. "Are you my Heavy Cat?" I ask her, while she patiently waits for me to be over this game. "Who's my Heavy Cat?" Sometimes I even curl her on my lap while I sit with her and scratch her chin.

Edsel is so rude.

Heavy Cat just got put down and she went outside, relieved that I am over it for now. Some day that dog's gonna eat my neck area out and you really won't be able to blame her.

I can also feel my knees JUST WAITING to give out while I lug her 45 pounds around. One day I will be all crippled up in my knees, I can tell. They're okay for now, but when I lift something heavy, such as Heavy Cat, they're all, "Yeah, what're ya thinking? We're going to feel weak STARTING RIGHT NOW."

I don't know how I got off on that tangent.

What I was GONNA sit down and write about was Marvin's latest YouTube video. Yesterday on Facebook, I saw that his mom linked to something Marvin-related, and I was all, What is Marvin up to NOW? He's trying to re-record the songs he wrote when he was 12. I have listened to all of those songs, repeatedly, and I can certainly see why you'd want to revisit them. God help us everyone.

 

He says his real name on here, but I asked him and he said that was okay if you all knew it, and I don't mind cause it's not my name anymore. If you click on the thing above you can see the video, which I guess technically is not YouTube, and I'll bet the fine folks at whatever this company is enjoying having their video called "YouTube" when it isn't.

The best part about the video is Henry makes an appearance at 1:46 and 2:03. A magical appearance. He even says, "Mrt."

I miss Henry.

By the time Marvin said, "Twenty-three songs," he was irking me. Oh, and I got him that dog toy behind him, the one where you push the bottom and the dog dances around. I forget why. It was back when we liked each other.

So there's your Marvin visit for, you know, the year. Remember when we talked about Marvin all the time? Now we hardly ever do. It's weird. Who knew I'd be all Marvinless one day? And happy with a whole new boy?

Did y'all see it coming, or was my "Marvin is moving out" announcement two years ago a total shock? Just recently someone commented that she had a baby more than two years ago, and stopped reading me cause she was too busy, then she came back and was all, Whothehell's Ned? How shocking it'd be to come back here after two years.

All right, I had better get ready for you-know-what. But confidential to my deep Real Housewives friends: Fay Resnick is a jerk.

XO, June

Ex files

A few days ago, my ex-husband Marvin had a dentist appointment in our neighborhood. Marvin doesn't even live in Greensboro anymore, and I don't know why he doesn't switch from our old dentist, but who am I to nag him? I have handed the baton of nagging duties to his next wife.

The point is, we decided to meet for lunch after the dentist. He had really wanted to see the dogs, so I said, "Just come to my house after and hang with them. In fact, why don't you pick up stuff from the place and we can eat at my house?"

What's nice about having been married to someone for 39494939 years is you can say "stuff from the place" and he knows what you mean.

"I'm having lunch with Marvin," I told Ned, who as usual has no issue with Marvin or with the part where almost all my friends are men or with anything, really. Ned is what you'd call self-assured. Plus there's the part where I am a giant moon of mooniness around Ned, so it's not like he ever has to ask himself, " I wonder if June likes me?" That'd be like me wondering if Edsel liked me.

"Marvin is bringing lunch over so he can hang with Edsel and Tallulah. He'll screw up my order."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I told him what I wanted from the place, and he'll get me the wrong thing. Fifteen years of marriage. He always picked up the wrong thing."

Always, you guys. Always. Once it was Christmas Eve, and I think I had a cold or maybe we were having people over or something. I forget what. The point is, I sent Marvin to the store for tomato paste and he came home with tomatoes. "It's the SAME THING," he kept insisting.

Since it was Christmas Eve, I couldn't just GO BACK to the store, and I cried, and from that moment on we always referred to The Great Tomato Incident of 2003 when I'd GO GET STUFF MY OWN DAMN SELF.

So I got home from work Monday and Marvin had just gotten there with the food from the thing. "What'd you get me?" I asked.

"A gyro and a Cheerwine."

...!

It was all I could do not to text Ned right then and there. "But I wanted a Pepsi," I said.

"They didn't HAVE Pepsi. So I got you a Cheerwine."

See. Now, if it were YOU, and someone asked you to get them a PEPSI, would you not then get them a Coke if they had no Pepsi? I mean, unless you were getting soda for one of those rabid PEPSI ONLY or JUST COKE FOR MEEEEE freaks, which I am not.

I don't know how it is Marvin and I got divorced.

Anyway, I filmed for you Marvin's entrance into my house, because I was kind of excited to see how the dogs would react to him.

They didn't.

 

He'd already been there that day, since his dentist appointment got out early, and I'd SAID he could come over (he fixed the TV!), but he also said they weren't excited to see him the FIRST time he walked in.

I mean, maybe the dogs seem excited to you, but trust me. I've seen the Ashley-comes-home-from-the-war greeting they do with people they're excited to see. Yes, I DID pull that tired example out again.

And Edsel always, ALWAYS has something in his mouth when he comes to the door. Usually one of my shoes. But if I've actually tidied up, he'll pull a dish cloth out the laundry. Would anyone like a dog?

So that was pretty much it. Marvin and I gossiped about our families and TinyTown and I asked him about his wedding plans (so far, no official date set) and that was it. I went back to work and he went back to his regularly scheduled life.

Maybe the dogs were pissed off about the Cheerwine.

Goodnight, Gracie

It's the end of the year, and time for my annual here's-everything-that-happened-this-year veeedeo. I hope you like it. I only tormented everyone with it 7,2394,t95945,#(49403 times. "Do you like this version?" "How 'bout this one?" "Is this song good?" And by "everyone" I mean Ned.

Happy new year, y'all! Thanks for spending 2012 with me.

 

Marvin

is engaged.

Step Work

If there's anything I learned from the media--or maybe I could be hilarious and call it the lamestream media--coming to my house, it's that my porch steps need to be painted. And I love the people who pointed it out to me, like I didn't notice that and the trashy fan on my deck. My attic won't open (long story) (who needs a handyman? Is it me?), so I can't store the fan in there and--oh, forget it.

Anyway, here's where I need your help. Can you send your husband over to fix my attic and paint my steps? No. No. Although that'd be great, actually.

What I need your help with is for you to tell me what color I should paint the stairs and door.

Here. Here's a whole picture of my house, and it would have been quicker for me to just go outside and take a photo but instead I googled my blog and then "+ yard" "+ ivy" "+ house" until I was ready to impale myself with a plus sign and also screech. I was ready to impale myself with Screech.

The point is, I finally found this photo of my whole house, and in this particular blog post, I'd left an Oprah magazine out thats cover read, "Oprah's battle with food is over!" Marvin looked at that and said, "Food won."

Sometimes Marvin kills me, in retrospect. He posthumously slays me. Does anyone else miss Marvin from time to time? Not like that. You know I'm all Team Ned at this point.

In fact, Ned and I were talking about how some people have a huge impact on your life, and they might not even be anyone you were close to or even liked. And here's where I desperately hope this person hasn't somehow found my blog, because you would not believe the people from my past who have found this. So far they have all been happy discoveries from people I enjoy, but if this poor sap is reading Ima feel terrible.

My point is, and I know I already said that two paragraphs ago and who rambles? Is it June? My POINT is, I worked with this woman in Seattle who I did not much care for. She was the most self-centered person you've ever met. At meetings we'd play the "I" drinking game. Every time she brought the conversation--the WORK conversation--back around to herself, we'd drink our coffee. We all had to pee like demons at the end of meetings.

You know how those demons are famous for just having pee fests.

However, we were all losing our jobs at that place because it was closing, and this woman was already scoring a new job because we actually had an economy back then, and she ended up getting me a job there too. Because of this, I met a bunch of people who are my friends to this day, and she also introduced me to a man I dated and lived with for over a year.

Meeting her lead to my marrying Marvin, which is a whole long story but trust me. (Okay, see, like I said I met a lot of friends at the job she got for me. One of those friends and I went to a strawberry festival. I know! Yayyy, seeds! At the festival was a psychic who naturally I stampeded to talk to. She said I had a curse on my love life and for $10 she'd lift it. I borrowed $10 from my friend and THAT NIGHT met Jonah, the film-student boyfriend I had who said, "I'd like to meet your old boyfriend who works on movies in Los Angeles." So I invited Marvin to visit me and boom we were married.)

If I hadn't married Marvin, I'd never have moved to Greensboro and never met Ned.

All because of that stupid woman who literally had a shrine to herself on her wall at home. She even had letters up there that spelled her name. Honest to God.

Which is my very brief way of saying some people impact your life and you never know who that's gonna be. Do you have anyone like that?

You'd all impact my life if you told me what color to paint my steps and door. Ned, of the met-him-due-to-a-strawberry-festival-in-1996 Neds, said he'd help. When you have All This, men help you paint your steps. I think the attic problem would flummox him, though. It seems like a major undertaking.

Ima go now so you can contemplate paint samples, but I managed to take pictures of my pets while I was headed out to photograph the steps.

I love Lily's little tippy toes.

why mom gots to bug lu.

Apparently someone needed discipline last night, seeing as the purple squirter is on the couch. Sadly I cannot even recall what transgression occurred.

I traded in Edsel for a paper towel roll. Seemed reasonable. Actually this is a harsh reminder of what it's like to have a puppy. You scream through a LOT of paper towels. There is much to clean.

This photo is a sad portrait of my life, actually. The brochure is from an art exhibit, which makes me seem super intellectual and you know how true that is. There's Ned's wine, back there. He likes red wine so I try to keep some on hand. Then of course there are pill pockets for dogs, which Ned likes to munch on. Behind those is a job candle. And on the window sill are two (2) kinds of dog meds. Pill pockets, wine and job candles. Now I'm sort of depressed.

Okay, I'm going now, to stick my head in the oven. Be sure to tell me about step colors. Or send paper towels. Whichev.

Spike. In my blood pressure. Also, June waxes on.

My sink's water filter broke, and I know you wonder how I am able to carry on, and let me tell you I almost didn't. Am I just supposed to go around drinking BAD CARCINOGENIC WATER from now on? Because, unacceptable.

I made the fatal error of phonng Marvin to see if he had any idea of how to fix said broken water filter, and does anyone remember that Marvin used to bug me? Because I DO. It just ALL CAME BACK to me.

He let me tell him the whole story of how it broke (the thing won't go back on the thing) and what I tried and my theories about what it could be that broke it, and after all that he said, "Yeah. I have no idea."

Sigh.

I forgot to tell you that he managed to not only bug me during that fruitless phone call (Ned was working. This is why I plundered my past for water filter help. Ned and that pesky need to make a living. Can't his job just be ensuring my comfort and clean water at all times? And what do you MEAN lucky Marvin?), he also managed to bug me from afar the other day with the popcorn salt.

I like things on my popcorn that have nothing to do with butter (blech) or salt. This, in fact, is one of the many reasons I like Ned. He, too, abhors butter on his popcorn. Every week we go to the movies and split a giant tub of ("GodDAMMIT, I like popcorn") popcorn, and nearly every week the kid says, "Butter?" and we both screech, "NO!" like they're taking away our free will or something.

So generally I put Spike or Mrs. Dash--or in my case, Mrs. Kind of Trot--on my popcorn, and I also live large and put Parmesan cheese on there, or if I'm really lucky, nutritional yeast. Poke fun at me all you want. It's good. You just have to remember to get the nutritional yeast at the hippie co-op, is the problem there.

But the other day I made popcorn and I was out of Mrs. Kind of Trot, so I got on a chair and searched the depths of my spice cupboard for something else. And lo and behold, there at the very back was some cheese-flavored popcorn salt from God knows when. From when I was married, at least, as I was about to find out the hard way.

"Yay! Cheesy salt!" I thought, and let me tell you, odder things come out of this brain in the course of a day. I took the lid off and shook. And shook. And shook it like a Polaroid picture. Because 2004 called.

And?

Nothing.

I pounded the side of the exciting cheesy salt.

Nothing.

Finally I looked closely. Marvin. Marvin, who's been gone a year and a half, had done the thing to the salt. My cheesy salt.

You know how you get a food item now, and more often than not you remove the lid--let's use peanut butter as an example--and for who knows what reason they now put a foil-ish kind of SECOND lid underneath? And you have to peel that stupid lid off to get to the real food? (Do they think this really keeps people from tampering? Do you not think if you were diabolical enough to want to tamper with peanut butter you'd be man enough to circumvent the flimsy lid?)

Well. Marvin? Never removed those aluminumy second lids.

It's like he was SUCH a busy executive that he couldn't take time. It was like the house was aflame, but he just needed one dip of peanut butter before saving the pets from the licking inferno. He'd peel a LITTLE of it, then leave it in tact, sort of pat it back down. Because apparently MY job was to take off the whole thing at some later date.

So the salt? My cheesy salt? My big find at the back of the shelf? Marvin had poked the world's tiniest hole in it, so just one grain of salt could get out per pour. It's like he must have used a pin, and poked a hole THROUGH ONE OF THE PLASTIC SALT SHAKER OPENINGS, to get a Lilliputian drop of salt out of that thing.

Guess who is lucky he doesn't live here anymore? Because guess whose next colonoscopy would suggest he's gettin' a little too personal with Lot's Wife? Guess who'd have condiments in each of his nethers? And no, I have no idea what "nethers," plural, means, either. I'm mad. Cut me some slack.

And in case you're worried sick, I bought me some original flavor Mrs. Dash yesterday. And I peeled off the lid completely.

In other pressing news, my old friend Dot sent me this.

Dot knows what a huge Yoko fan I am, and also how much I enjoy hearing about her three-ways with celebrities.

"Okay, where WAS this? Because those are the worst replicas of John and Yoko I've ever seen," I wrote her. "Oh, we went to a wax museum," Dot told me, "and no one there looked remotely like anyone was supposed to. It was hilarious."

And that, friends, is how I decided to have a giveaway (I KNOW! You know how good my giveaways are. And how I hop right on getting your winnings to you.). The first person to actually guess who these inexplicably bad wax figures are wins a brand-new, super-exciting, chosen just for youuuuu....

...box of Abraham Lincoln bandages.

I KNOW! Honest!

Get it? Do you? Be sure to take them to the theater, in case you get wounded.

June. Tasteful and appropriate since 1965.

Okay, here we go. Who the hell are these wax people?

Good luck. I mean, I don't want to put too much pressure on you, but again. Abe Lincoln bandages.

I'll even peel the lid off the package, if it has one.

There's a Bad June on the Rise

Before I begin, I want you to know my father said, "I can't believe a person who writes Bye Bye Pie went out to Buy Buy Pie."

Who is his own biggest fan?

Anyway, last night ...friend and I schlepped to Winston-Salem, as we are WONT TO DO CONSTANTLY, and saw Marvin sing with a band. Each year this band apparently plays at the bar we went to, WHICH HAD NO AIR CONDITIONING, and each year they have a theme. This year it was Come to the Bowels of Hell at this Bar with No Air Conditioning When it's Literally 105 Out.

Also, it was Creedence Clearwater Revival. That was the theme. Freaking Creedence effing Clearwater effing Reeffingvival.

 

"You're gonna hear 30 songs by Creedence Clearwater Revival tonight, and you're gonna know them all," said Marvin, when we ran into him on the street before we entered THE WORLD'S HOTTEST BAR.

Who wished she'd have worn a strip of cotton over her nethers and nothing else? Who wished she could sit in a tub of ice? Because, hot? Oh, and let's all enjoy Marvin's shirt, shall we? He said he went through his closet and felt each shirt, picking out the lightest one.

So, the band played 49459505440 CCR songs and different people got up and sang. Some were really really good. Some were not. Marvin sang Bad Moon Rising, and before he got up there, he told me, "You know, there's a bathroom on the right."

Marvin and my dad. Adoring themselves since whenever they started adoring themselves.

So, dude. You have no idea how many effing CCR songs you know.

...friend held my hair up for me while we watched, because I don't know if you were aware that I have a lot of hair. And, hey, did I tell you it was kind of hot in there, with the no air-conditioning thing? I wanna know, have you ever felt the heat?

 

When Marvin was up there, I was too interested in watching Marvin to remember to take a picture, and I'm SORRY I don't think about this blog ALL THE TIME, but anyway, eventually I took a picture of this guy, whoever he is, singing some CCR song, on a shocking note. Those are lights around him, those are literally heat waves.

 

Are you watching these? Because you're gonna say, Oh right, THAT song! I know that song! I did that every time some new person got up on that (hot) stage. It was a little warm in there. Who was perspire-y? A tad melty? A touch warm? Was it me?

So there it was. Despite the lack of air-conditioning, and perhaps I failed to mention that till now, it was actually really fun. And ...friend and Marvin did not beat each other up. Nor did they compare notes on me. We would have made you proud, Mary.

 

(Honest to God, HOW MANY CCR songs ARE there??)

In which people are nice to June. Heaven knows why. I guess cause I'm a PRINCE of a gal. A PRINCE! You don't have to watch Dynasty to have an attitude.

I am eating a piece of toast, my dear 16%, and on said toast is chocolate hazelnut peanut butter. To say I am enjoying it would be an understatement. The neighbors are probably about to call the police. "Someone is too joyous over at the white house near the corner."

I didn't mean to buy the chocolate hazelnut peanut butter. It was on special, as Marvin would say, and it was right near the front door. When you walk in. Don't you hate it when someone is describing a house or something and they start, "Well, you walk in, and..." Really? Do I? Do I walk in? I thought I'd use my x-ray vision. Need I walk in, really?

Speaking of Marvin and his x-ray vision, I got up with him yesterday to sign some more notarized documents. This divorce stuff requires a lot of notaries. I was wondering if Tom and Katie will have to schelp to the UPS store to see a notary, too.

Here is Marvin, showing his empty wallet, because this particular trip may have involved me bilking him for his millions. I was in it for the money this whole time. Mmmm-hmmm! Wrangled me a fifth-grade teacher. SCORE! I am not so much a gold-digger as a Gold Bond Medicated Powder-digger. A Tracy Gold-digger. Although she might have some money, but really? Does she? (Insert obvious "She doesn't spent it on food!" joke here.)

Also, Iris is peeing in this computer room and someone please tell me what to do other than snap her neck. I realize that came from nowhere but it just wafted at me again and I am PISSED. So to speak.

When Marvin wasn't handing me over his riches, I was busy getting lovely gifts from readers.

God, I can crop with the best of them, can't I? Centered? Indeed. Anyway, isn't this pretty? Faithful Reader Pam sent it, along with an Eastern Star hankie, cause you know how I am about the Eastern Star. What a nice surprise! I told ...friend about my gifts, and he said, "Oh, it's just like the song I recently wrote: "June Bought the Ruse."

I don't even want to know.

Oh, and who sent me the Nars pencil sharpener off my Amazon Wish List? Tell me so I can thank you.

Then finally, under the category of Peoples Are Nice to June (Have I ever told you that story, about the guy saying to my Uncle Jim, "Peoples is funny, Jim. Peoples is funny."), last night I went out with ...friend,

(...friend looks just like a fountain.) (We sat NEXT to a FOUNTAIN. Smarty-pants.)

and afterward, we went back to his apartment, and guess what. GUESS! He RECORDED the season finale of Real Housewives for me, because I had missed it in order to celebrate his birthday. And there at 1:00  in the morning, ...friend sat there with his vagina and watched that stupid show with me.

I can assure you he is not Netflixing the first seasons.

But wasn't that nice? What a nice boy. Here I am. Being happy at ...friend's.

Tonight, oddly, we are going out to see...Marvin. I KNOW. Marvin is going to be singing at this place in (wait! waaaaiiiit!) Winston-Salem, and he mentioned it to me yesterday as he was trying on a barrel, and I said, "Would it be weird if ...friend and I came to see you?" and he said "No! Show up!" So we are.

This is all very European or something, isn't it? Maybe ...friend and Marvin will beat each other up. Oooo, I kind of hope so. Wouldn't that be sort of exciting? Who do you think would win? Plaid vs. Plaid! Tonight! Winston! LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLLLLLLLLLE!

Going now, because I have to read as much statistics as possible before tonight. Note how my looming deadline does not interfere with my nightlife. Because I love the nightlife.

 

By the way, I cut and dyed my hair just like that. AcSHUN.

If I weighed more, I'd sing.

At 2:00 p.m. today, my marriage will be over. I mean, it's been over for some time, but, you know. Legally.

I am sad that I failed. I didn't do so badly, though, marrying Marvin. I will always be glad I married him. Even though it's done, and I accept and even welcome that it's done, I think Marvin will always be in my life.

Thank you for marrying me, Marvin.

 

XO,

The old ball and chain.

Green Bean. Also, Brooks bought me a mink. Did I mention Brooks? Mink? Brooks?

You wanna know what's weird about Edsel?

Well. I mean, we'd be here all day. But you wanna know one thing that's weird about Edsel? (And YES. I CALLED THE VET about his eyes. Waiting for call back.) One thing out of the 39494949 that is weird about Edsel is that although this dog does NOTHING but CLAMOR for my love all day long, with the following and the slapping his chin on my lap and the snout snout snout nudging me CONSTANTLY? When I want to hug him or lean on him? He is appalled.

Let's say I'm on the couch watching the (riveting!) season finale of Real Housewives. And Edsel is up there with me even though dogs are not allowed on the couch and how many photos of those dogs on the couch have you seen now? Anyway, it was a special occasion because Edsel just loves Heather and wanted to see what she'd do about that bitch eating the bow off her cake.

And stop being so lofty. Just start watching the damn Real Housewives, will you? FIVE-HUNDRED and FIFTY DOLLARS Heather spent on that cake, and some heifer just COMES ALONG and eats the bow off before the cake is cut.

So there we are, watching our deep show, and I want to, say, lay my head on Eds's haunch. As soon as I do that, he jumps off the couch and falumphs to the floor with a crash. And he always has to sigh, like I put him out so tremendously. "{Flump.} HMMMMMMmmmmmmmmphhhhhh."

Whatever. Edsel is a commitmentphobe.

Yesterday I finally stopped downloading pictures of old boyfriends and finally got started on my statistics book editing. Because, fun? I kind of want to floomp onto the floor and sigh disgustedly.

I took my work to the Green Bean, which is a coffee shop downtown. Somehow I can get more work done when 11 pets aren't jumping on me. Unfortunately, the only table available was in the front, by the window, so naturally I kept watching people walk by and judging their clothes.

Eventually, ...friend came to join me, because he lives right by there. You know what I forgot to do, though? Was take a photo of ...friend. Was too busy being all smitteny and ridiculous like I always am.

After awhile, he left and I went back to my work till it was time for my deep television program. I think Gina's daughter is so terribly gorgeous. And just shut up and GO WATCH THE SHOW. Is all I'm saying to you.

Anyway, after all that time at the Green Bean yesterday, looking at young girls with fabulous bodies and that thing? Where they make every statement? A question? And I want to slap them on the backs of their heads? After all that, today on Facebook I see Marvin has written a song about the Green Bean. Sometimes he plays guitar there.

 

He took this with his hat cam. Who bugs me, with his hat cam? Do I even want to know how much that cost? Who here misses Marvin and his hat cam shenanigans? Anyone? Bueller?

Anyway, so there was my day. I hope you and your hat cams had an equally exciting one.