This weekend, Ned and I did absolutely nothing to fix my house up, which we had said we would do every weekend, but basically we both suck. We were planning to paint my fence yesterday, as though we were Tom Sawyer, but we did not because it was raining this teensy incessant nagging drizzle, not so bad that you couldn't go out in it, but just enough that you could not, say, paint anything outside.
On Saturday, thinking we had all the time in the world to get to fixing something in my house, which did I mention we had absolutely said we would do every weekend and we suck? Anyway, thinking we had all the time in the world for such things, Ned and I schlepped to the cemetery, as we both like to do.
I photographed tombstone names that cracked me up, because mature.
I tried to get the side-by-side tombstones of Little and Dick, that really were right next to each other, but could not get my angles right. Mature photography is hard. It takes geography.
A whole roomful of graves, glaring at us.
Anyway. After that, we walked the dogs for a long time and oh! I keep forgetting to tell you about the day Ned walked them by himself. First of all, I saw them out the window as they came home, and they were...they were...I can't even say it. They were WALKING RIGHT NEXT TO NED. They weren't pulling eight feet ahead of him while he flew in the air behind them like a kite. No. They were walking next to him like when you see people walking their good dogs and you say, How the eff does anyone get their dogs to do that? My dogs were doing it.
Then they all burst in. "They were so good!" exclaimed Ned, removing their Gentle Leaders I bought years ago that were supposed to ensure they'd WALK RIGHT NEXT TO ME. "There was a little dog loose in the park, and it came right up under Edsel..."
I braced myself. I looked in Eds' teeth to see if there was any leftover schnauzer in there. How much was I going to owe these people because my dogs ate their Snickers or whomever? My dogs HATE small dogs, and will kick the ass of ANY dog who runs up to them, loose, and dear fucking people. Maybe YOUR dog is fine not on a leash, but guess what. Some of us are FOLLOWING THE RULES and keeping our dogs leashed, possibly FOR A REASON. And if your oh-so-great leashless dog comes up to my LEASHED dog, my leashed dog will kill your dog till it's dead.
"Edsel didn't do a thing!" Ned said, all excited. "Neither of them did!"
What the...?
Goddammit. They see fucking Ned as the fucking pack leader. Six years I've had Tallulah. I've taken her to training classes and taught her tricks and fed her ass and taken her to the vet and had the cancer removed from her damn dog hip, and Ned waltzes in and she's all, "Your wishes, master." And EDSEL! Who's supposed to love me! I can't ethen. I worked with a girl whose boyfriend mispronounced "even" as "ethen" and she was thinking of breaking up with him due to this fact. He also thought the sandwich was called a "Monte Crisco." "I'll ethen have the Monte Crisco!"
Anyway.
On Sunday, we got up with The Poet and Naughty Professor, to have lunch and see Maleficent, which is an actual mainstream movie with previews and stuff.
When we got there, Ned and I did our thing, which was he bought the tickets and I screamed in to get our popcorn. I always do it that way because we're always late to our weird depressing movies that we like. But we were NOT late that day, plus, 75 minutes of previews, so when The Poet and Naughty Pro walked in and I was already be-popcorned, they were all, "?"
One thing Angelina Jolie had in that movie were some cheekbones. And Elle Fanning needs to maybe learn that smiling really, really hard is not the only way to express that you have joy.
Afterward, because it was raining, Ned and I went to the local bookstore in his neighborhood and bought books and sat in there with our drinks. We were having a lovely time, till the owner came up. "Bad news, folks. We're closed now."
Dudes.
We are really, really trying to like that bookstore, but pretty much every time I've gone in there, I've been told why I cannot be in there. Once there was an event that BLOCKED THE BOOKS so buying them was not possible. Once I went in there with about 20 of my coworkers, and we were all drinking and eating, and the owner told us there was an event so we couldn't sit there anymore. (There are WAY too many goddamn events at that place. It's pretty much every day.) And now, two people who have just both bought hardback books and a drink have to drink up and get out? You couldn't give us a few minutes, or, I don't know, be grateful?
That place has precisely one more chance, with me. One. Then I'll stay home and order on Amazon again.
So, Ned and I went back to his place and read our books for free. I got a memoir by the same woman who wrote Under the Tuscan Sun, but does anyone have any good fiction to recommend? I still cannot tell you how much I loved Ex-Boyfriend in Aisle Six by Susan Jackson Rodgers. Go get that and you will die of happy. She's such a good writer.
I have to go get ready for work. Oh, here's my latest Purple Clover. It's about my class reunion.
Now go do the right thing.
