If you were thinking I had an answer about my mammogram you are MISTAKEN. I have to wait wait wait while vultures hang on the trees around me and a strange man with a hood and sickle hangs in my living room and the raven cries, "Lenore!" Plus, who tied all the pink ribbons on the old oak tree?
What I like about myself is my lack of drama. And how I don't take an ordinary thing like a mammogram and turn it into the MOST DRAMATIC MOMENT OF ALL TIME.
Or anything.
Do you hear Taps?
In other news, I am already stressed out about the holiday season. Yesterday it occurred to me that we are going out of town for Thanksgiving, a fact I have known for six weeks at least, but just yesterday I decided to, oh, plan for it. You know how I am.
Oh, shut UP. I had to WORK this weekend, in case you didn't know, and also too I had to obsess about my mammogram. Did I mention I had a mammogram yesterday? So that took all my time till now.
So I called Tallulah's day care and asked if she could board there while we go out of town this week. Oh, did they hoot and laugh and carry on. What a bunch of jerks. You know, Tallulah is on the home page of their website. You'd think they'd make special accommodations for their star dog.
I called her vet next, as they also board. "We only have room for small dogs left," they told me. I started wondering what kind of weight-loss program I could put Tallulah on. Maybe I could throw her in the dryer. Shrink her a tad.
"Is 45 pounds, you know, small?" I asked. Whatever Zigzag papers they were rolling at day care they must have also been passing the dutchie with at the vet, since they seemed similarly mirthful.
Finally I got Tallulah in to Bed & Biscuit Boarding. I am not making that name up. The woman who runs it kept calling Tallulah my "baby." "We take your baby out for play time in the morning and at night, and your baby gets treats at noon." I am so tempted to bring an actual human baby to Bed & Biscuit. Does anyone have one I can borry? And I did say "borry" on purpose.
Edsel is coming with us on our trip because he is too little for his spadeding or neutralizing or whatever so he cannot board anywhere. I think he'll be fine. My aunt has two ancient dogs who I'm sure Edsel won't annoy in the slightest.
I had a TON of work to do, so I got home late last night, then had to immediately back out of the driveway as soon as I got in because I realized my winter coat needs dry cleaning and I have to have it for our trip, so I had to go screaming to the overnight dry cleaning drop box.
Then I had to stampede back home and leave a message on my vet's answering machine, telling them to fax Talu's I-have-all-my-shots info to Bed & Biscuit, and I'm sorry, every time I say Bed & Biscuit I die.
Also too, I am supposed to be bringing the pies to Thanksgiving, and I know you can imagine how I have been rolling the dough and slicing the pumpkin or whatever you do when you make a pie.
Guess who just thought about the part where she needs to get pie? Was it me? Was it yesterday?
We have a hoity-toity grocery store here called Harris Teeter, and I am sorry to tell you that my friend The Other June's boyfriend taught Marvin to call it Hairy Peeter, which Marvin continues to think is hilarious even though he is supposed to be an adult.
Anyway, they have a bakery there and I called them.
"Hairy Peeter bakery! We are expensive!"
"Hi. Are you taking orders for pies?"
"Honey, we just baked a bunch today. I'd come get them now because they won't last long. I don't know if we'll bake more before THANKSgiving or not."
That's how people say it here. THANKSgiving. Where I come from we say ThanksGIVING, and "thanks" is pronounced "thaaaaaaaaaanks" because it's the Midwest and you have to stretch out your As for 600 weeks.
So I got BACK in the effing car and screeched over there, and do you know there were 9 million people at the pie section?
There was a very respectable-looking old person there with a Nancy Regan suit and a giant multicolor cross on. I figured she was someone's grandmother, so I asked her, "Is this pie any good?"
"Oh, yes!" Cross Grandma said. "It's what I get every year! I'm gettin' me two of 'em!" Then she took the LAST SWEET POTATO PIES LEFT and made tracks, that old crow.
So I got the LAST apple pie, and a pumpkin and a pecan. The old rugged cross Nancy Regan Grandma told me to keep the pies cold, and my mother had told me about some mythical bag that I could use to keep the pies cool on our trip.
Honestly. People have searched less hard for Nessie than I did for this made-up bag. Oh, I was irritated. People everywhere, frozen turkeys skidding out of hands, single women with carts full of cookies and 87 bottles of red wine, and ALL I WANTED WAS THIS URBAN LEGEND BAG.
Finally I asked a clerk, who swore he knew what I meant but couldn't find it either.
We paged the Hairy Peeter manager. He was about seven years old.
"It's Thanksgiving week and someone wants a FREEZER BAG?" he stormed out of the back room.
"Um, this is the customer, right here."
The manager, who was appropriately chagrined about complaining about me RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, told me they were phasing out the freezer bags to force people to buy the $11 Hairy Peeter bags.
"I'll take one," I said.
"WHAT?" both store clerks said.
"I don't even care. I just want to go home. Get me a Hairy Peeter bag."
"Red, green, or blue?" asked the manager.
And that, my dear friends, is how I ended up with the $11 carry-your-cold-foods bag. Which I guarantee you I will never use again. And if my family doesn't eat every bite of that ding-dang pie it is going up bums.
What am I talking about? Have I met my family? What pie?
Finally, there was good news in this otherwise press-your-boobages stress-about-holidays kind of a day.
I got pre-Christmas presents from my Aunt Mary. Yes, she IS the aunt who likes to shop.
I got a Christmas tee shirt...
...and this pretty ornament. Her little whatever-that-is that she's holding is actually pink. I do not know why it turned out blue in the photograph. I thought pictures didn't lie or whatever.
No. Pictures are worth a thousand words. What is it that doesn't lie? Crap. I hope the Cross-Dressing Old Grandma at Hairy Peeter didn't lie about those pies. Is what I hope. Because if you think my mother is gonna let it drop that my pies were no good...
Isn't there some religion I can become where I celebrate no holidays? And where I don't believe in mammograms? I'm going to start it. We'll be the Hairy Peeters. No. We'll be the Bed & Biscuits.
Sigh.
