Bye Bye, Pie!

June and Sleeping Beauty go to the beach. Except she's bringing her baby. How much sleep will she really get?

I woke up this morning and before I even opened my eyes, I told myself: YOU GOING TO THE BEACH, BITZ!

So here I go. If I can figure out how to send pictures to my blog, I will. If I can't, just picture me lying there getting melanoma. It's supposed to be sunny and 75 all three days.

GOING TO THE BEACH!

BITZ!

June avoids

Sometimes I sit here at my blank screen, and so desperately want to prattle on about what's really going on, but to protect the privacy of those around me I cannot. This is one of those times.

So in the meantime I will say that I am going to the Outer Banks in two weeks! Wooooo! In case you are not from here, and most of you are not because I have the Google Analytics and I know ALL ABOUT YOU, the Outer Banks are the, you know, banks outside of North Carolina. You have to take a big pretty bridge to get over there. And it's all beachy and such. I went there with Sleeping Beauty two summers ago and Sandy and her husband this past summer. I brought Sandy to the beach! Bah!

Anyway, Sleeping Beauty just asked me if I want to join her, her new squishy baby and her man, who I don't know if he's squishy or not because I am not a terrible friend. Oh, and her dog Puck, who is decidedly also squishy. He is a Lab. Do you think he'll enjoy the beach at all? They're pretty indifferent to water.

Once when Talu was still a pup I took her to the lake when my mother still had a place there. And could she have been more iffy about water? She kind of...waded in with all the enthusiasm of Katy Perry in a library. Talu. Not a water dog.

I have no idea what Edsel would do around water. He has Irish setter in him. Do they like water? Anyway it's irrelevant because neither dog is coming along. They get to enjoy the Outer Daycare.

So that'll be fun. I haven't seen Sleeping Beauty since her baby shower last spring. I drove to DC for it, remember?

My gift was the green and purple bag. I got her all breastfeeding-related things, and a onsey that reads, "I suck." Adored myself.

Now I have to go. I am still overwhelmed with the freelance work, which is good, but I am working 9 or 10 hours a day and am still behind. After the 10th hour, your proofreading skillz are not what you'd call up to par.

Is anyone doing anything riveting this weekend?

June Gardens, gym rat

Can't talk long--I have to get to the gym. I know. You guys have spoken to me many times about my exercise bulimia. I mean, I just SAID I was going to the gym...never. In five years of writing this blog.

I did belong to a gym in LA, but you had to in order to get your driver's license there.

Friend in Real Life Kit--not that I have a kit that you put together and boom! you get a friend, which would be convenient, wouldn't it? Gee, I want to go to that new restaurant and everyone's busy. Hey! I'll get my Friend in Real Life Kit!

Am annoying today. It's the endorphins. They are pumping from all my 'roids.

My friend in real life, whose name is Kit, has a gym membership eight inches from my front door, and perhaps you wonder how I've managed to take photos out my front door without including a giant gym eight inches away.

Sryisly mom? Could be more annoyinger?

So she got a 30-day pass for me, Kit did, and asked me to join her at said gym. I have always wanted to join that gym, actually. It was the one Marvin went to all the time. Do you remember that? How he was always traipsing off to the gym at like 9 p.m.? Maybe you got here after Marvin. [A.M.] Anyway trust me. That happened a lot.

How did I pick a grownup cat and a baby cat who look so ridiculously alike? Kills me.

And in other nice-things-people-are-doing-for-me-because-people-are-nice-and-what-gives news, someone who reads this blog, with whom I have corresponded many times and become friendly with, emailed me a few days ago. Seems she kind of added up in her mind the whole year of shingles, dead cats, gone husband, surgery, lost job, broken heart, ass of a time I have been having and she wrote me.

"You know," she said, "I get frillions of miles from my job. I will never use them all. Why don't you go somewhere? Get out of town," she said, but not in that "get out of town" way people are always saying to me.

"Miles of what?" I wondered.

Anyway, my point is, I am going to HAWAII. And LOS ANGELES. To see my friends. Can you even stand this?

CAN YOU EVEN STAND THIS? Really. Can you? Because I am still in shock. Do you have any idea how bad I need to see my friend Renee, who had to go and move to Maui like it's pretty there or something? Renee was my best friend in LA, and we moved from there at the same time. Every story about us ends in us in hysterics on my kitchen floor, on in a spa's quiet room, or on a running trail. Or in a dressing room. Or at a hospital. Twice. Still. Hysterics.

I met Renee when we were both training for a marathon, back in 2000 when I was not a lumbering pituitary case. Do you like how I've blamed the pituitary and not chilupas? We were in a running group that met desperately early on Saturdays to run ludicrous numbers of miles.

My cat, Francis, had this thing called pica, where you eat stupid stuff, and his stupid thing of choice was plastic. I barely knew my running group, but there we were, the dawn barely breaking. "Huff," we'd say. Then "huff." I couldn't stand it so I broke the silence.

"I pulled a dry cleaner bag out my cat's ass before I got here this morning," I said.

Renee was the only one who had to actually stop running because she was laughing so hard. She was all doubled over and I said, Ooo, good audience. And a friendship was born.

Anyway. I am planning to go in August, in case I get this job for which I am interviewing. It is technically a 6-month-plus contract job (yes, mom, with benefits, through the agency) and so I thought I should plan for six months from now. I know that's a long way to wait but just the THOUGHT that IMA SEE RENEE, then IMA SEE LOS ANGELES AND ALICIA AND MY FRIEND DAVE AND IN-AND-OUT BURGER AND WHY IS MY PITUITARY ACTING UP is so exciting.

Does it seem like I am a person who gets really good and really bad things? Not just, oh, I won six dollars playing Lotto. Oh! I caught a cold.

Speaking of which, and then I have to pull on my sports bra and gee I hope it's clean (bah!), as you know I have this...friend, of whom I am not speaking in order to try not to JINX it like I have done with everyone else. On Sunday, Dick Whitman and I went to a movie, and it was a French movie with subtitles so needless to say the room was not packed, in fact two people were in the theater. Guess who one of the people was? Was it my...friend?

So we all sat together. It was beautiful.

Then last night, I went to the cool Carolina Theater with said...friend. It's one of those old wonderful theaters. My point is, we get in there, and WHO IS IN THE NEXT ROW? Was it Tall Boy? I mean, can I go anywhere and not run into someone I've dated? I've hardly been Fonzie this year. I haven't dated THAT many people. And yet here they all are, like it's This is Your Stupid Slutty Life or something.

Okay, I gotta hit the gym. I am going to end every post like that from now on.

Who dat?

Hey, did you hear I went to New Orleans?

On the first night, on my way there, I stayed with Faithful Reader Sadie, who coincidentally has a dog named Sadie. You'd think she'd name her dog something different from her own name, but who am I to tell people what to do? Anyway, I had never met Faithful Reader Sadie nor her dog Sadie nor her cute husband Mr. Sadie, but she has been commenting forever, so when she said I could stay with her on my way to New Orleans, I trusted that she would not kill me and indeed she did not.

Look at her! This is Sadie the dog, not the person. Anyway, I got a charge out of them both, because Sadie the person was all, "I got you Pop-Tarts, and I know you take your coffee half caf and half decaf, so I got that, and here's a tiara in your room if you want to play with it."

June's blog. Making her an annoying fussy guest who you have to get special things for since 2006.

Friday morning dawned early, as opposed to it dawning late, and Sadie the person and the dog made me a ltitle bag of treats to go and why does anyone like me, is what I want to know? I just come over, eat all the food, take some to go and shed everywhere. I am a delight.

I stopped off at a truck stop in Alabama, or maybe Mississippi, for some boiled peanuts and coffee, as you do, and met this nice kitty there. The owner of the truck stop told me the kitty lived there and everyone fed him, otherwise who'd be owning Alabama kitty? The whole time I was petting him, I could hear Hulk's stupid voice, which sadly appears in my head way more than I wish it to: "%#@@&. Only you could find a #@$$&# cat at a truck stop."

I stay friends with Hulk out of pity, because no one else really wants to hang around him that much, owing to the fact that he says things like, "Percent pound sign at at ampersand." I'm really one of the only people who'll tolerate it.

(Hulk's three food groups)

At any rate, I got to New Orleans and had to drive through the city awhile before I got to the hotel, and I am telling you, I saw the phrase, "Who Dat?" 94933939495595595593837374755753 times in the first 10 minutes.

When I got to our room, Donna answered the door and I said, "Am I already sick of the phrase 'Who dat?'"

You know what you don't want to do? Is tell Donna you are sick of something. Every 20 seconds, for the rest of the trip, Donna said, "Who dat!?" We'd be looking at a menu: "Who dat! What you gonna get?" We'd be wandering the streets: "Who dat! Did you see what she had on?" She'd walk in from the shower: "Who dat?"

No one on the planet is having a greater love affair than the one Donna was having with herself each time she irked me anew with "Who dat?" She is currently out purchasing a diamond eternity ring for herself, to show herself she'd marry her all over again.

Who dat?

And really, she is lucky she lived through the whole trip, not just because I was going to stab her through her who dat head, but also because everywhere we went, someone was trying to shove shellfish down her allergic gullet.

We decided to eat at the bar (no, I DIDN'T have a drink. Calm down.) at this restaurant because it faced outside and we wanted to people-watch. You could sit there for the rest of your life and stare at people in New Orleans and never grow bored. Trust me. There are men in sparkly bras, women practically naked, people dressed as trees. One person was dressed as a piece of poop and I am not making that up.

Anyway, first Donna had to try to find something on the menu that would not kill her. "Oh! There's shrimp and clams! Or I could have scallops with lobster! How about the crayfish!" We were in hysterics. Even her old favorite, potatoes (you have never known a person to be more fond of potatoes. She would MARRY potatoes had she not already married herself over the Who Dat thing) (She would be Mrs. Potato Head) (She would be Mr. Potato Head's other woman. Mrs. Potato Head would come make hash browns out her ass. Girlfriend likes her a potato, is the point I am trying to get across to you) were cooked IN SHELLFISH.

Finally she got the catch of the day, which believe it or not did not come in a shell, and we were enjoying our dinner when WHOOOMP! The bartender slapped a gigantic thing of oysters on the bar and started, I don't know, shucking them? Whatever you do to oysters. And we thought it was maybe a one-time deal, but girl. It was like he was Sisyphus or something with the boulder and the hill. WHOOMP. Another tray of oysters. He was never-ending with his oysters.

"You know, I don't have an Epi-Pen," Donna said nervously.

Anyway, she lived, obviously, or else I might have led with that.

Other than nearly killing Donna, New Orleans is a festive town. In case you didn't know. There seemed to be a tradition of people getting married and inexplicably parading down the street with their guests as a band played jazz, and every time one of those bands went by us, I'd say "I could go for some Zatarain's."

Donna usually answered me "Who dat?" Really, it is never good to have two people who get such a charge out of their own selves together like that.

One of the wedding guests threw his beads at me, probably because I was standing there with my hoots just out and proud. Anyway it gives us all ample opportunity to enjoy my metal crown.

Speaking of New Orleans traditions, am I the only person who goes there and heads to the book store?

And finds a kitty to love? Hi, Hulk. "Ampersand pound pound."

I also wanted to go to the voodoo shops, and at some point Donna actually had to work, which is why she was there (whatEVER), so while she did pesky work, I asked the concierge to send me to a real voodoo place, outside of the touristy area.

I took a cab to a real neighborhood, and went to this shopping center that seemed to cater to liberal white people. It had a yoga studio, a food co-op, a healing arts center. You know the drill. Then right in the middle of all that was a voodoo priestess's store.

And also? That day?

Yay!

Hello, pitty pit pit! I love you and your big big head! I hope a white liberal person gives you a home very soon.

Anyway, I went to the voodoo shop and oh, I looked in there for probably an hour. There were powders you could bathe in to, like, put a spell on your own self. There were candles you could buy shaped like a person, and then you buy oils and anoint the candles. So, if I wanted Hulk to love me, which I do not, I'd buy a boy candle and then I guess love-me-Hulk oil and put it on the candle or something.

Oh that store was packed with voodooy thingamabobs. Finally I was drawn to a pink envelope. "What's in here?" I asked the priestess, who looked like a liberal white person. "There's an amulet in there. It draws love to you."

"How much?"

"Three dollars."

"Sold.

So I bought my three-dollar amulet, and sat in the food co-op and read the directions. You had to read the little chant that went with it, so I did, and I put the amulet in my wallet and went outside to hail a cab. A truck with two men riding in back went by, and one whistled while the other screamed out, "I LOVE YOU!"

So there you go. I got my three dollars' worth.

Here's a place where I stopped off for a decaf after my dabble with the dark underworld...

...and here's the kitty I met at the coffee shop. "Pound pound pound sign! Percent!"

On my last night there, we were pretty tired, and we went down to the hotel restaurant to get a late-night salad. Partayy! We ate up at the bar, where AGAIN I did not have a drink and I really wish you'd relax, and some drunk guy next to Donna said, "So what are YOU two planning on tonight?"

Donna didn't tell me this till we were back up in the room. Not wanting to let on that we were the most boring duo in New Orleans, she said, "We're going up to the room to discuss our game plan" knowing full well that without a word between us, we were headed upstairs to put on our pajamas and sit on our beds and talk, which was precisely what we were in the midst of doing when she relayed the story.

"After careful consideration," she said hysterically, as we fluffed our pillows to lean up on them, "I think we're staying in."

Donna had to go back to work the morning I left, so I penned a note and left it on her bed.

"Hey Donna," I wrote. " I can't believe I forgot to ask you this, but,

WHO DAT?"

 

Big easy June. Wait.

I am leaving later today for New Orleans! Wooo!

I picked a fine week to stop sniffing glue.

And guess who has not packed one iota yet? I hear you need plenty of iotas for New Orleans. I mean, I kind of packed in my MIND already. Does that help you organized people who are itchy at the prospect of my unpacked pink bag?

I am going to New Orleans because my high school best friend, Donna, is there on business. Why anyone needs to go to New Orleans on business is beyond me. She is a professional crawdad-head sucker. That sounded disgusting. Actually I think she is allergic to shellfish, and are crawdads shellfish? Because am I going to spend the entire trip jamming Epi-Pens into her leg while they make us eat crawdads? Isn't that what you do in New Orleans other than expose your hooty-hoots for beads?

Do you like my detailed knowledge of where I'm going? Do you like all the research I've done? Hell, I'm just putting it in the GPS and asking for the good voodoo shops once I get there.

Anyway am excited. And this blog will go quiet for a few days. I still do not have a ding and dang cell phone, so I can't keep up with you, and I haven't had time to look around for old posts to post.

SORRY. Geez. You know, some people go MONTHS without posting, Miss Doxie. Ima go four days and y'all are gonna have 88 fits, aren't you?

I am bringing my camera, and I will not even DIGNIFY your hysterical, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THE PETS?!?!?" questions. I am putting them in the bedroom and closing the door. Survival of the fittest. Roger will be fine when I return.

My best friend from high school, Donna, and I met the very first day of school. They put us both in the deaf homeroom. Is it okay to say "deaf"? They change what's sensitive and what isn't, but I think you're still allowed to say that without someone sending me a scathing email. Anyway, I swear to you it was all deaf kids and the two of us. I was sitting there, in the first five minutes of high school, thinking, This is awful. Everyone in high school is so QUIET. Is this what it's gonna be like?

I saw a girl near me who had hair EXACTLY LIKE MINE who seemed to be thinking the same thing. Hours later we were in gym class together, and we had EXACTLY THE SAME fine physical prowess, meaning the gym teacher would just shake his head and let us play badminton in the corner all year, and anyway we came to the theory that they took the loudest girl from North Junior High and the loudest one from South and put them with all the deaf kids so they couldn't disturb anyone.

We still managed to bug everyone else at school.

And now we can irk everyone in New Orleans, and I assure you there will be a minimum of 15 times that Donna and I will be giggling until we have no breath. Because we may be middle-aged now, and she has a fancy job and two kids and so on, but we both still HAVE THIS HAIR and neither of us has matured an iota.

Even though I am packing iotas, I will not get them out.

So have a good weekend, y'all, and I will tell you about my trip when I return. Unless it makes it on the national news before then.

Butt Tour 2011

Zzzzzzzz--oh! Is mom's computer finally ready? I logged on in 1712.

I know I never complain about the slowness of this computer. And in general, I have such patience. Instant gratification takes too long.

Anyway, I'm here. I drove straight through. And do you know what I had? Was a lack of ridiculousness on that drive.

I decided to get the oil changed before I left, seeing as I was gonna drive 730 miles and such. The last time the oil had been changed was when Marvin still lived with me; he did all the car things.

So I'm sitting there at the Jiffy Lube, and I thought, you know what I should do? Is check how much money I have. I thought I had about $600 to my name, which was gonna be more than enough for gas and a room, should I not make the whole drive.

$138.

That's what I had in checking. A HUNDRED THIRTY-EIGHT DOLLARS.

Do you know who has a tight grip on her finances? Is your pal Money Wizard June, here. Once I perused my account, it made sense. Oh, yeah, I had my roots done. Oh yeah, the emergency vet bill. Oh, right! The lacy bra that was $58.

You know, once you start spending money you chip away at the $600 you were thinking was in there, like an unmoving lump.

Money tips. By June. I am so starting a new segment of this blog.

This $138 cash flow influenced my decision to not stop at a hotel, and also to have a Peanut Buster Parfait for dinner.

So I'm screaming along through 86 states to get home, and I had stopped a few times: for gas, to a rest stop, to get that Peanut Buster Parfait, and I noticed my seat felt kind of, I don't know, sticky.

"Wow, these pants feel like a leather seat," I thought, continuing my vein of smartness.

Edsel had chewed a giant hole in the buttockal/girl parts region of my yoga pants. The yoga pants all the men at Jiffy Lube saw. Basically it was a whole June's Vagina Exposed tour.

I had to pull over, drag my exposed sugar walls to the trunk, get out a skirt, and do the whole "slip on the skirt/slip off the stupid half-eaten yoga pants" move.

I abhor Edsel.

After that I decided I needed caffeine as a reward, and yes I AM supposed to not drink caffeine. Shut up.

I bought the coffee, left the coffee on the counter because I was busy reading emails, had to go BACK INSIDE and get my coffee while the coffee woman--who had star tattoos on the side of her face--laughed at ME, and get in my car.

Fourteen seconds later I spilled the coffee all down the front of my white tank top. I looked like poor Jackie Kennedy's suit when they swore in Lyndon Baines Johnson.

So basically? Fun trip. Good times. Relaxing. I did find a channel on my Sirius radio that is an all-book channel, but they read one book for an hour and you get all into it and they read another book the next hour. Chaps my hide. Well. My exposed buttocks on my hot leather seat is what chapped my hide technically, but still.

The wedding is at 6:00, so maybe I better start worrying about that. It's only eight hours away. Gotta primp.

After all, it's my day.

 

In which June blows off the South to be the bland Midwesterner she's always been

I'm getting ready to get in the car to leave for Saginaw, and by "getting ready" I mean I'm sitting here blogging.

Somebody just pulled into my driveway to turn around, and I don't know about you, but if we were all in the car in high school? And we pulled into someone's driveway to do that? We'd all shout, "GET OUT THE BEER AND PRETZELS!"

Because, you know. We might be unexpected company. See.

No, I didn't grow up in a totally blue-collar town, with the beer and the pretzels. Why do you ask?

Also? A thing that makes me shudder and wonder why I am here talking to you about all the pressing details of the day? Is the memory of me in the car with my high school friends. Holy cats. We were one of those "Don't Drink and Drive" videos in the making. Sometimes the whole point of the evening was, "Let's drive around and drink!"

Horrifying.

So on that note, I'm about to get on the road for 13 hours to be home in time for my cousin's wedding. Yes, I know she already got married in India. We don't believe her and we're making her do it in front of our own eyes here in America where it counts. We all have shotguns and torches.

I have packed nothing and you know that means I will do it hurriedly and get there and realize I forgot my arms.

One thing I did manage to do was ask Marvin if he could come stay with the dogs rather than me taking them to daycare, so I don't have to endure Vomitfest Deux when I get back. He is annoyed with me because today is the first day of school, but I hardly see what one thing has to do with the other. Just show a film strip. Geez.

Oh!

When I went to the movies with Dick and his Whitman the other night, we stopped off and looked at this inexplicable bull. I liked him because he has a barrel chest like Tallulah.

dere statoo of talu somewheres?

Do you like how she was RIGHT NEXT to me and still I could not take an unblurry picture of her?

Anyway. I had better pack. Last time I forgot to bring my migraine meds and I had to seduce the woman at Target pharmacy to give me pills and then I never got a migraine. Annoying.

Okay, I'm off. Carry on.

Love my home-y but where's my beaches?

You know who I feel sorry for? Is my friend Sandy's husband. Who just wanted a nice week on the Carolina coast, getting away from his demandy-pants job (he took like 87 conference calls while I was there. Do you know where I am rarely needed? Is on a conference call.

In fact recently at work I walked PAST a conference call on my way to make tea, and a Very Important Person said, "June? What are your thoughts?" and I stood there and peed right through my work pants and onto the floor. My THOUGHTS? My thoughts were I might make green tea or perhaps peppermint.

"Oh, we were talking to June on the phone, not you, June," said Very Important Person at work, as he observed me peeing like Edsel and growing an underbite and putting back my tall ears.)

Anyway, Sandy's husband, who Ima call Trojan Horse, is just the nicest person you could ever hope to meet, and let's discuss how Sandy ALWAYS has men who treat her like gold. I mean, this is the first person she actually married, but throughout college and afterwards and so forth, all of her boyfriends were cute, successful and totally, "What can I do for you NOW, Sandy?"

In college, Sandy and I lived in an apartment with her pre-med Rob Lowe-looking boyfriend, who used to get up before she did to make her coffee and scrape the ice off her windshield and warm up her car.

Thirteen years of marriage Marvin never even scraped the ice off my personality. How does she manage to score these men?

Anyway. My POINT is, Trojan Horse, Sandy's husband, was trying to relax and be on the beach and enjoy himself, and he had to be with old Lucy and Ethel, here, giggling and doing EVERYTHING POSSIBLE to stress him out.

When I first got there, I told him he was gonna need a blog name and he said, "Oh, no. Blog names should not be chosen. I should earn it while you're here." So finally at some point during my stay, he was actually getting a word in and telling some story, and he was struggling to find a phrase. "Oh, you know," he said. "It's that thing where something is inside something else."

"A parasite?" Sandy and I both said helpfully. At this point we were just saying the same thing at the same time, having reverted back to being the same person, as we had been in college, except for the part where she is impossibly hot. Yes, STILL.

"No, no," he said, dismissing us and continuing with the story. Then a few minutes later he interrupted himself.

"A TROJAN HORSE! That's the phrase I was looking for earlier."

Sandy and I stared at each other for about .008 seconds before we fell over in hysterics. "In a million years, I'd have never come up with Trojan Horse," I said. "Something that's inside something else. Yes, that says 'Trojan Horse to me," said Sandy, and poor Trojan Horse didn't even get to finish his story.

In other we-are-annoying news, we had been lying on the beach for 79 hours in a row, which was smart of me and my Irish.French.German self and who forgets that she is out there sunning with Armenian Sandy? Is it me? Have I forgotten this since we first laid out together in 1984? Is she always brown as a little toasty tidbit and am I always a bloated red Western European person at the end of every tanning session? Who learns, ever?

So I decided to go inside for a spell and my Pal from MA called me, because it's important that Pal from MA keep me abreast of her every move even when I'm on vacation. Sandy had come up, too, but was going back out, and said to me while I was on the phone, "Bloodey bloo bloo dee bloo key."

"Okay," I said, concentrating on Pal from MA.

When I was going to go back to the water, I thought, gee. I wonder what Sandy said about the key. I looked on the table by the door but only saw the rental car key. I called her on her cell, but she didn't answer. I locked the door and went to the beach.

"I locked the door," I announced proudly.

"And you brought the key, right?"

We stared at each other, horrified, each hoping the other was joking.

Who had to get a WAGON, with WHEELS on it, and scale the balcony of our condo like he was Spiderman? Was it beleaguered Trojan Horse? Who wanted to stick my face in the ocean till I stopped squirming, do you think?

And then do you know what happened? DO you? DO YOU? Poor Trojan went back to the water, probably to swim out his annoyance, and he got STUNG BY A JELLYFISH!

STUNG!

It was probably a jellyfish named June.

He came inside and showed his injury to us. "Can't you die from those?" I asked helpfully. "No, those are man-o-wars," said Sandy. "Or maybe it's Trojan Horses," I said, loving myself. Sandy and I giggled and carried on while Trojan went inside to Google "What to do with a jellyfish sting."

"I'll pee on you!" I called to him.

It was maybe 20 minutes later Sandy and I were talking, on a shocking note, and I said, "Poor Trojan Horse."

"Why?" she said, having already completely forgotten his injury.

Do you know what I should do? Set up a tip jar for Trojan Horse. Not that he needs it. Just because at this point I know you feel as bad for him as I do.

Plus, he had to look at my beach hair the whole time.

One thing we did NOT do to poor Trojan Horse was involve him in the wine shenanigan. Now, let me add the caveat that Sandy is the least alcoholic person on the planet, even though this story is gonna sound like we should get our Ouija Boards and call up Betty Ford.

It was 4:00 p.m. and Sandy said, "I think it's late enough for wine, don't you?"

"Oh, absolutely," I said, ever the enabler. "Let me get you some out the fridge, here."

So I got a bottle of white out, and we worried for a minute there wouldn't be a corckscrew at the condo. There was, but it was one of those very rudimentary ones that had no leverage to it, you just screw and pull. Screw and pull.

Story of my life.

I don't even know what Sandy was doing, although I suspect she was playing with my makeup, as Sandy and I have always been obsessed with each other's makeup and will some day give each other pinkeye and die. Or perhaps Trojan Horse. So there was me, screwing and pulling, screwing and pulling, screwing and pulling, and that DANG CORK would not come out.

"What is going ON over there?" she asked eventually.

Girl. I cannot begin to tell you how bad that cork did not want to come out that bottle. That cork and that bottle were in love. They had made a lifetime commitment. There weren't NUTHIN' gettin' that cork out that DING and also DANG bottle.

Here is an action shot of Sandy, hacking at it with a knife. This was seconds before she said, "You'd better not be photographing this for your blog."

Oh we did everything. We Googled it. We called my mother (not home) (I.am.sure). We called my old boyfriend who owns a brew pub. "The cork is dry," he said. "You know, many good wines these days come with a screw cap; it no longer means it's cheap."

Because that was helpful.

Girl, we were IN it then. We were getting that DANG cork out if it was the last thing we did. And I am happy to report we never once forced Trojan Horse to come in off the beach.

Finally? We managed to shove that in-love cork into the bottle and we strained the wine using the coffee filter. I told Sandy she had better enjoy every.drop. of that wine.

And she did.

Over the course of three nights, because who is a lightweight? "Oh! I've had communion! I have to lie down in the snow! I'm so dizzy!" Who must have been a delightfully cheap date in high school?

So it was a fun trip. It was good to get away from it all. With our cells, our iPhones, our iPads, the TV, my blog comments, and free wi-fi.

It's the simple things that make you happy.

 

 

I'm back in the South where I belong. Where's my fatback? Oh. It's attached.

I have returned, without incident. Except for the part where my smoke alarm went off at 3:17 this morning. It just went off for maybe three horrifying, jarring beeps then stopped. And it was not the "I am running out of batteries" beep. It was the real thing.

So after being RIPPED from sleep, I had to lie there and think up horrid reasons why that happened. Was the fire smoldering and would start back up any second? Was there an intruder blowing smoke into the alarm so I'd get up, then he could hack me to bits? The whole thing was restful.

I did notice that both dogs and both kittens were sleeping with me--Anderson and Roger in a tight little kitten ball. They recovered from the smoke-alarm-alarm sooner than I did.

At any rate, I must scream off to work now, but before I go, here is what I did in Saginaw, other than visit 49330932444 people in 48 hours, and I cannot TELL you how I enjoy people emailing and calling, "I see you're coming to Saginaw for three hours! Any chance we can get together?" NO! There is NO CHANCE I can cram ONE MORE THING IN when I come back for these teensy visits. Why must people LIKE me?

I bought me a ring.

My Aunt Kathy has this ring, and her daughter my cousin Katie just loved it and used to borrow it all the time, so eventually my Aunt Kathy got one for her and for her other daughter, my cousin Maria. Everyone was sporting their pretty diamond all weekend and I said, I WANT ONE! so my aunt and I headed to the jewelry store and I swooped in and bought it. Like I'm rich or something.

Oh, it was on SALE. And they have this year-to-pay-it-with-no-interest thing. Look, any store in my hometown is just excited anyone is buying anything. They'll cut you a deal.

I just love it. I stared at it the whole way home on the plane. I am certain I did not look touched in the head.

Okay, my ring and I must go to work.

It took me four days to fly out to Saginaw

I am here, finally, because what a smooth, unharried journey. Holy sheep dip. Also, I am typing like the wind because my cousin is in the shower and as soon as she is done we have to scream on over to the pedicure place, then over to the shower (I know! We just TOOK showers! BAH) and then I have to drive to a whole 'nother city. My visits home are never what you'd call lazy.

My first flight was delayed, which was fine because it meant I could just hang at home and kiss Anderson and his tapeworm and so forth. Which is gone, because I had time to get him to the vet and dewormed yesterday.

Also, I wish every0ne in my family would stop being jocular and talking and so forth so I can blog in peace. It's quite distracting.

Anderson was quite popular at the vet and everyone loved his name. I was careful to say someone from my blog named him, and they all sort of ignored me like I was crazy. Good LORD how much talking must everyone DO in this house? Can't we all catch up with each other silently?

Anyway, after the fun trip to the vet, I checked in online, paid for my bag online, resented paying for my bag online and finally drove the 10 minutes it takes me to get to the airport. I found parking about 30 steps from the gate. Did I mention I love living in a small town? Go to hell, LAX.

When I got inside, there was a line like everyone was waiting to get on The Matterhorn, and again I am certain that is a hep reference to an amusement park ride. I do not go in for amusement parks. My brain is an amusement park.

I am sorry to tell you I went into the first-class line and insisted they take my bag because I had already checked in online. And can you believe they did it? Obviously they knew the star quality they were dealing with.

Then I got searched at security. They picked me randomly, because I am clearly a terrorist. I was standing behind the posts, waiting for my anal glands to be expressed or whatever, and the woman behind the xray thing said, "Ma'am, which shoes are yours?" "The pink ones," I said. Then some wise guy said, "NO! THOSE ARE MINE!" Everyone's a comedian.

The fact that I am writing you not from airport prison may tip you off to the part where I made it through. But when I got to Detroit? THAT flight was delayed. I was 90 minutes from home and I sat in the airport for two hours and changed gates twice.

Some guy tried to pick me up on that last flight. "I'm gonna turn off my Blackberry," he said. "When there's an attractive woman next to me I'd rather talk." He asked me where I was headed, and I said Sagianw, which made sense because why the hell else would I be taking the Detroit-to-Saginaw flight, and he said, "Lots of black there." He did that thing where he whispered "blacks" like it was a bad word, or a thing he KNEW he shouldn't say but of course it'd be PERFECTLY okay to say it to me, the white supremicist that I am.

Yeah. THAT'S the way to charm me, you racist eff. He went on about welfare and irresponsible people and I grttted my teeth and picked up my book, and he TURNED THE PHONE BACK ON while we were taking off. Talk about responsible people.

Anyway. Now I am here and my cousin Katie (of "Aunt Katie, are you a lesbian?" fame) is staying at my mother's house so we can see each other and she has come in twice while I have been blogging and I AM TRYING TO BLOG NOT BE INTIMATE WITH FAMILY. GOD.

Okay, off to get my tones done.