It's Sunday afternoon, and it's raining, and this is the time of week I love. I adore Sundays, and I guess it's because I'm lucky enough to not hate my job. So I don't get that awful Sunday Wonderful World of Disney feeling where I dread the next day.
It was a busildy weekend, and in an hour Ned will be back over here to go to a movie. For a change. We thought we'd see how we enjoy attending a movie together. Once I tried to figure out how many movies we've seen, and I know it's more than 100 in the last two years. When we first met, and had had maybe two dates, I ran into him at the theater. If we ever break up, god forbid, Ima have to start going to movies on Wednesdays in order to avoid him.
Do you enjoy my cheery personality? I love Ned, and yet I have a Ned-avoidance plan for if we ever break up. I used to look at my beloved cat Mr. Horkheimer and picture his demise, too. "Oh, look at him," I'd think. "I just love that big solid cat so much. One day he'll be dead."
Nobody wants my brain. Nobody.
At any rate, yesterday afternoon I got up with one of my TinyTown friends, and it was delightful. He was in Greensboro to shop for something you can't buy there, which pretty much includes anything you can't get at a Walmart. So after his shopping extravaganza, he came over and we headed downtown to eat lunch outside, because it was nice out.
The whole world was eating outside, because we finally could. I slid the cucumbers off my sandwich and admired the dogs people had with them. I wish I had the kind of dogs you could bring to a restaurant, who would not spend the whole time barking and glaring and grimacing and shooting cannons at the other dogs.
"You don't like cucumbers?" asked TinyTown pal.
"I see no reason for them to be invented," I said decidedly. "I guess you don't like cucumber sandwiches, then," he offered, as if this comes up for me a lot, seeing as I'm at every tea and garden party in the area so much.
"Those I can get behind. I mean, you can barely taste the cucumber, Plus, cream cheese. And I'm classy, too." It was at that moment that I gestured and spilled my Coke clean across the table, all over everything, including my child's menu and crayon that I had specifically requested. (That maze is a sonofabitch, and if your child can solve it he needs to be in MENSA.)
We sat in the sun, and gossiped about TinyTown, and caught up on each other's lives. "Aren't you going to eat your pickle?" TinyTown wondered. "Oh, RIGHT. It's a cucumber!" he said, sliding it off my plate.
Truthfully, I don't mind a pickle. I guess my abhorrence of the cuke is mighty selective.
On our way back to my place, my phone rang and it was Marvin. "I'm driving though town! Are you home?"
So that is how I replaced one guest with another. Marvin pulled up as I was pulling wild onions out my garden, and if anyone knows how to get rid of GODDAMN wild onions, please alert me forthwith. "Are you in the same place you always are, then?" Marvin asked me. In the final days of our marriage, I may have...spent much time in the garden so I wouldn't have to talk to Marvin. It's sad, but my yard never looked better.
Tallulah was ridiculously happy to see her daddy, and I remain guilty that I gave my pets the same hand of cards that I was dealt: being from a broken home. Poor Tallulah.
Iris, who never lived with Marvin, didn't give two shits that he was over.
grow pair, talu. chit happenz.
As soon as Marvin was gone, Ned was here, because his Important Basketball Stuff has come to a close. His team, which is...um, red, I think, lost whatever it is you lose and he was sad, Ned was. I hate to see Ned sad. So we made out. Because I am the ultimate consolation prize. I am the Rice-a-Roni.
Then we got in the car and headed to Winston-Salem, for a change, and got up with Faithful Reader LaUral and her husband, Gumbo.
I just made up her husband's name just now and am so in love with self that I may have to write a sonnet on a doily and mail it to me with a dozen roses.
LaUral and I got blackberry juleps, and they were goddammit good. Ned said there was a lot of estrogen in those glasses, but I'll have you know he took two sips of mine. Because, goddammit good.
I don't know if I told you how many branches fell dramatically in my yard after we had an ice storm recently, but a lot of branches fell dramatically. One fell and IMPALED itself into the ground, like a whole new tree.
A WHOLE NEW TREEEEE!!!! What is that stupid song? Is it from Aladdin? Why do I even know that song?
My point is, the branches needed gathering. And I needed someone manly to do the big ones.
And that man was Ned. Oh, he was back there sawing and dragging and hauling and so on. I was back there, too, picking up the twigs like it was exhausting. The dogs ran back and forth, following Ned as he dragged huge branches.
"The dogs seem to be your branch managers." I said. I've named bench in a park after myself, and soon will pay for my own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. "Have you been waiting your whole life to say that?" asked Ned, who seems less pleased with me than I am, and that is his personal failing. I can't help it if he doesn't know funny when it's Shekky Greene-ing him right in the face.
So that was my weekend, so far at least. I will alert you if anything else happens, such as if I'm hilarious again. Which, come on. I can't help it.
Socially, June
