A time. Morning-ish.
When we last spoke--and why didn't you ever call me last night to say you got in okay?--I said I'd tell about all the places I stopped working at, and how I yelled at someone in a wheelchair, and how I am a magnificent person.
But before I do, let me just tell you I was making coffee this morning.
That's it.
It's hilarious every time I do that.
And I noted that Lottie had...alighted. She was just lying on the kitchen floor. Let me tell you something: For Lottie to be still and not (a) dead or (b) completely asleep in the puppy pass-out, is weird. I'd go so far as to say it's never happened. So it got my attention. It's like when a hummingbird stops.
"Wow," I thought, a teensy light of encouragement seeping just ever so slightly into the dark corner where my soul died by the time she was 9 weeks old. "Maybe she's calming down!"
She was lying right in front of the room where my computer used to be, the room with the bad concrete floor. Edsel was in that room, finishing his breakfast. He'd ordered the brown sugar waffles and a mimosa, extra light on the champagne, with a flower garnish. Anyway, what I realized is she wasn't lying so much as cowering.
"Lottie!" I said, sort of alarmed, sort of delighted to see her remotely cowed by anything in life. "What's--"
And that is when Edsel stalked out of the room, with a holster on his hips, talking like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood or something. He walked by her without a glance, and she cowered further, simpering, like someone had beaten her or something, and I wondered if all the times I've beaten her in mind had somehow made itself clear to her.
She followed Edsel while they both walked toward me, and her tail was curled under her, and her entire body was brought to you by the letter C.
I have no idea what Edsel did to make her that way. They did not fight, as I've been three feet from their eight feet all morning. But Ima guess some shade was thrown over Edsel's Belgian waffles, and Lottie understood from the deep recesses of her dark soul. Every once in awhile today, Edsel's been showing her his teef. Well, he always shows everyone his teefs, but this time he's also showing the top ones. The fangy ones. Tough. Clint Edselwood.
She really loves to dig a hole, Lottie does, and she has a huge one at the side of the house. My theory is she's trying to get back to hell, from whence she came. So it's exciting to see Edsel trying to take control of the situation.
Anyway.
So, for those of you on Pie on the Face, you know I told you I'd be writing this week's Purple Clover about families, and I asked, "Tell me about your families," and as usual you all had answers--thank god--and what I love is when you all just keep talking way into the night as if I wouldn't be, oh, writing the damn column by then. It's like when people used to stay at my mother's game night parties forever. I'd wake up in what felt like the middle of the night and was probably 10:30, and people would still be talking, and I'd roll over and go back to sleep.
But I'm glad everyone participates in those questions I ask you when I'm trying to write something. I always get one or two gems to use after.
As I write you, my back door is open to the screen door, and I just heard a train go by in the distance. Do you remember how Ned's apartment was literally just feet from the train tracks, and it was a whistle stop, so whenever a train went by they had to blow the whistle? It was SO IN OUR EARS, and sometimes there'd be a guy who'd blow his stupid horn forever, and we'd both say, "THAT guy was a dick."
And now it's off in the distance, that whistle, which is metaphoric, and I am deep.
I can hear birds and cicadas, too. Aren't cicadas only supposed to be at night? What's that buzzing, then? I wish I knew how to record things with my phone, then upload said recording onto my blog so you guys could say, "Oh, no, June, that's a Right-Winged FrooDeGloogen, not a bug."
Right-Winged FrooDeGloogen. That bird totally supports Trump.
Oh my god why do you read me.
SO I WROTE MY PURPLE CLOVER COLUMN, about families, and MY EDITOR said, "Yeah, not so much with this one, June. It's kind of all over the place."
I could see that. It kind of was. But the thing is, I've been writing for them every week and then every other week for three years. That's 874 columns, by my maths. And I notice they never put me on their Facebook page anymore, so I just kind of wonder if maybe I'm columned out. Which is what I wrote him, and he said, Yeah. Maybe. So why don't you just write for us when you have a really good idea. And I said, yeah, okay, that sounds good.
So that's that. Now, watch, I'll be CONSTANTLY INSPIRED. Maybe I'll make a little book for myself of my columns. You know how you can do that? I've always wanted to do that with this blog, except it would literally cost 9 hundred million dollars at this point, because we're coming up on my 10-year anniversary of blogging.
Isn't that weird?
So, on the same day I got an email from the statistics textbook company. They've been boughten. Yes, that is so totally a word, and 9 hundred million dollars is so totally what they got bought for. The point is, since 2003 I've been proofreading those books, and grousing about it, and getting the dollars after and shutting right up, so it's the end of an era.
I'll kind of miss those books. The part where it gets here and I either tear into it right away or I torture myself with the unopened box for three days. The little schedule I make for myself. "I have to read 74 pages a day!"
Everything ends.
Then finally, when I was on my trip last weekend, we got to the hotel and parking was an issue. The place we were supposed to park was full, and there was a guy in a booth. We drove up to it and knocked on the window. The guy ignored us. We knocked again. He turned his head toward us, but just continued on with his busywork.
When he finally DID talk to us, he was a total dick. He probably also pulls the whistle at train stops. Oh my god, he was rude. He asked, "Did the sign say 'Full'?" Yes, it did. "Well, there you go," he said, and slammed his window shut.
SO RUDE!
I called the hotel and they said we had every right to park there, and that there were spots reserved for the likes of us, so that guy was totally in the wrong. I was very old biddy-ish and I said, "That man was very rude" to the hotel clerk. Who'd probably love being called a clerk.
"That guy was in a wheelchair," said my...travel companion. I totally feel like Brenda Starr right now.
"Well, I don't care!" I said, because nice. But I did sort of feel like, well, okay.
Anyway, when we checked out, funk soul brother, we left that parking lot and guess who was back. He never even LOOKED at us, just took our ticket and kept going. It was then, as we drove away, that I yelled, "FUCK YOU" at him.
My...travel companion was, you know, maybe aghast. As we headed back, he said, "I think I'll always remember this as the trip you told a man in a wheelchair to fuck off."
Technically, I didn't tell HIM to fuck off. I just said fuck you. There's a huge difference.
So now you know all my stories, and we are all caught up until next time, when--
oh!
I almost forgot to show you Iris's crossy feets of casual.
I love that cat so much I almost can't stand it. Crossy feets.
Okay, bye.
Joooooon
