Bye Bye, Pie!

Dr. Dreee

The other day, I went on Facebook--and what is the world coming to, that people are BLOGGING about what they say in FACEBOOK? It's like when talk-show hosts interview each other.

Anyway, I announced to the world of Facebook that I think Dr. Drew is hot. I thought I was alone in this, but it turns out I am not. I always think the things I think are my thoughts alone, except for the part where I thought everyone's mouth got hurty and numb when they ate grapefruit, and then it turns out no. It only happens to people who are allergic to grapefruit.

At any rate, people were validating my feelings on Dr. Drew and it was marvelous, until my annoying cousin Katie got on and wrote, "Who's Dr. Drew?"

Don't you hate people who don't watch TV? That old boyfriend who wrote I Dated June here a few weeks ago, and I am too lazy to link to it because I have things to do, also does not watch TV. Once I told him I was getting a pedicure at the same place Courtney Love gets her pedicures and he said, "I have no idea what any of that sentence meant."

Oh shut up and stop being so intellectual.

Anyway, I don't watch a lot of TV, but I watch enough to know who fricking Dr. Drew is. Which is what I told my mother when I was relaying this pertinent story, and she said, "I don't know who he is, either."

Is my entire family Amish? Geez. So I tell her how he's probably late 40s, gray hair, bookish, yet with these broad shoulders, and he seems very sensitive, like he'd sit around and listen to your crap all day.

My mother says, "That doesn't sound like most rappers."

.....!

She thought Dr. Drew was a rapper. And then even better, she said, "Oh, no, that's that Dr. Dreeee, isn't it?" She pronounced it "Dreee" with a long 'e.' I'd like to remind you that last year she said "Caney" West, as well.

I told her I had to blog about this and she said she wasn't going to talk to me any more if all I did was make fun of her on my blog. But sometimes you just have to ruin family relationships for things like this. If my people would just watch TV like everyone else on the planet none of this would happen.

And in summation. You may not have noticed that yesterday evening I linked to a blog so you could watch dogs greeting their soldier owners, and if you didn't notice it, scroll down to the next post. Cause busy. Have things to do. But on that same site I found a fascinating link to another site.

This man took a photo of himself every day starting in 1979 up until the day he died in 1997. He dies of a brain tumor, I think. But the whole thing is interesting, really. Just to look at his friends and his New York apartment and his life. So cool!

Here's his website with all his photos. And here is more info on him. (And if my cousin Katie reads this, those blue words are where you click to see the sites, hon. Y'all think I'm being patronizing, but I had to tell her this one other time. The whole media thing is not her bag, apparently. But she used to snowshoe to work.)

Because it's Veterans Day, and because there are dogs involved

Go look at this blog. It's video after video of dogs greeting their owners, who are returning soldiers. You will weep.

And really? Not one cat was happy to see their owner? Yeah. Probably not. See the dramatic video of a cat giving a soldier the silent treatment for a week.

Wherein June uses the F word twice

It is raining like the Dickens here, whatever that means. I can't see a ding-dang thing when I drive in the rain. Would everyone like to come along on my drive to work?

And YES, since 6,000 of you have asked, this IS my last week of work. Faithful Reader Hulk asked if I was incorporating the phrase "f*** yeah" into as many things I proofread as possible this week. But you know what? I am still over there looking desperately for errors. Why? If I miss any, I'll be gone and I won't get into trouble. Yet I am doing my usual bending over the page sweatily all day.

Also too, tomorrow they are taking me to lunch. It seems like you really don't deserve to be taken to lunch if you quit a job. "You're abandoning us! Here's some free food!" I got to pick the place, so naturally we're all going to the place where they have Coke in teeny glass bottles. Nothing but the fanciest for me.

I have a statistics textbook to read in a week or two, so that's good. If anyone else needs anything proofread, you know where to find me!

That's pretty much all I have to say about that. Except f*** yeah.

Sometimes I'd just read poetry as my outgoing message. It's a wonder I kept ANY friends, isn't it?

I didn't have any pictures to show you today, so I did the thing where I looked at pictures we already have, and I found this cute one of Winston warming Marvin's fellas, if you know what I'm sayin' to you.

I adore Winston. Have I mentioned he's a flawless creature? Have I mentioned I ripped him from the jaws of death, as he was going to be put down THAT VERY NIGHT? Have I mentioned that is a travesty and everyone needs to ADOPT FROM SHELTERS rather than purchase their animals? Because this cat is worth 7 million dollars. (I wish literally, because if that were true I'd be selling him to the glue factory so fast that time would actually spin backwards.)

Anyway, I think I'm getting a cold. And I don't mean that in a my-grandmother kind of a way. When my grandmother first started getting the dementia, she started to be unable to come up with words, and when this happened she'd say, "I'm getting a cold, I have to sneeze." Which was a brilliant way of interrupting her own sentence and hiding the fact that she couldn't come up with the word.

Really, I did think that was pretty impressive of a save. Poor Grammy. Getting dementia would have been the last thing on her list she'd have wanted to get. She enjoyed coming up with the pithy, not-nice-very-often thing to say.

I have a tape of people leaving me messages from my old answering machine. (Before I had a blog to bug people, I had my outgoing message on my answering machine. Oh, I enjoyed holding you captive while you listened to the ridiculousness I had going on. Sometimes I'd just tape part of a movie. I had Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet saying, "Heineken!? F*** that shit. PABST BLUE RIBBON!"

Sometimes I would just read descriptions of dog breeds.

Oh! And one of my favorites was I had the coroner Munchkin singing about the witch being dead. "As coroner, I vouch for her. I've thoroughly examined her. And she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead." And then after was my voice: "Or maybe I'm just not home."

People hated me.)

(One time I just screamed, for as long as I could, and that was my entire outgoing message.)

Anyway, I had some ludicrous outgoing message when my grandmother called, and I have her on tape saying, "This is your grandmother. And I just listened to a bunch of horse shit." *click*

I have used the "s" word a lot today.

Getting back to my POINT, which was eleven hundred paragraphs ago, I think I'm getting a cold and I'm annoyed. I catch more colds than anyone else on the planet. It couldn't be because of my diet, could it? I mean, Filet-O-Fish is an antioxidant, right? 

Speaking of which, my coworker had Peanut Butter Cups today and I heard him go into my boss's office and ask if she wanted one. Naturally she said no, because my boss NEVER eats anything unhealthy and I do not know why said coworker even asked her, and without any discussion whatsoever he walked into my office and I already had my hand out without taking my eyes from my screen.

The real question is, who SHARES their Peanut Butter Cups? Also too? I have a friend? She eats ONE of the Pop Tarts. She saves the other for the next day. And again, ?.

So I'm irritated about the cold. Oh! And the electric company came and it turns out our power outage was their fault and it cost us nothing and yay! I can have a cold under bright lights rather than that Abraham Lincoln doing our homework on the back of a shovel thing we had going all weekend.

I will keep you abreast of my impending illness. Sometimes it feels like a cold is coming on and the next day you are fine. Does that ever happen to you? It does me, but you may be shocked to hear I am hyper aware of every symptom, so.

This is you, and you just read a bunch of horse shit.

Winner!

We have a winner in the shopping spree contest I announced on Friday. Congratulations to Shannon of The Shannon River. Not because she won. Let's just congratulate her.

No, no. She was our big winner. I picked her by going on a random number generator site. I didn't pick her because I like her better than you.

Perhaps AllModern.com will let us do another contest someday and you can try again. Because you know what Winston Churchill said. If at first you don't succeed in a blog contest...

Oh, and Marvin called the electric company today. The Electric Companeeeee, The Electric Companeeeee...

I'll stop. Anyway, they were home at 6:30 in the morning. How dreadful. But hoping to stop living like Mary Ingalls soon. Who needs those night-vision goggles like Jodi Foster had in Silence of the Lambs just to brush her teeth at night?

Hey, you guuuuuuys!

I am typing you while surrounded by cats, which is usually exciting, if you're me, but right now I'm just irritated.

I mentioned last night that half our power is out, and it still is, including the, you know, heat. Which isn't that bad because it was 74 today, but now night is here and it's getting a little nippy and EVERY PET IN THE WORLD is trying to sit directly on top of me.

When my cat the beloved Mr. Horkheimer died, my cousin Katie sent me an email saying, "Horkie is in cat heaven, sitting on computers and newspapers people are trying to read."

Sometimes my cousin Katie is really funny. That was one of those times. Because what would be more cat-heaven-like than cats just wanting to get in your way while you're on the computer or whatever? It's the only time they ever take an interest in you. Well. Except for NOW when it's CHILLY in here and have I MENTIONED I am wearing a cat lap blanket and stole currently? And a dog belt?

I know I have told you about the other time my cousin Katie was really funny, but I told this a long time ago, and every time I retell a story I feel sorry for my faithfullest reader Culpepper, who has read me for over two years. She even read my OLD blog. Poor Culpepper. Who knows why she hates herself so.

So the story is, my cousin Katie left me a message saying she was gonna send me two T-shirts from the Gap. "I don't even know why I bought them," she began, "because they aren't my colors. But you'll like the colors and they fit well. They actually have sleeves, not those teensy cap sleeves for the armless."

I listened to this message and I kind of laughed. She was right. T-shirts today do not have enough sleeval area. They are totally made like people don't have arms or something. The more I thought about this, the funnier it got to me, and by the time I called her I was in total hysterics and she had to wait for me to stop laughing.

"I just got your message about the bad sleeves," I told her. "Ohmygod, that was the funniest thing you ever said in your life." I was in physical pain.

Silence.

"Yeah." Katie finally said. "I was quoting you when I said that. You said that line about the T-shirts last time we shopped together."

Oh.

I do sincerely heart myself.

Anyway, I guess that's all I have to tell you about the exciting life of June today. Except I raked leaves and accidentally touched a worm. Which, ew.

Does anybody know anything about power, by the way? And why we have none on one side of the house? Marvin keeps insisting it'll come back on on its own, which seems a little passive to me. Do you know what I'm gonna do? If Marvin doesn't fix it, I'm gonna hire that duo who sing I've Got the Power! and every time Marvin enters the part of the house with working electricity, I'm gonna make that couple sing. And do that fine dance.

Or perhaps I could just call the electric company.

Mince Words with June: The Glass Castle

First of all, half the power in our house is gone. I do not know why. Marvin is rigging up the microwave to plug in in here so I can eat my White Castle. Because he's helpful that way.

So anyway if I disappear it means the power in the rest of the house has suddenly died, too.

But getting to this month's book, how bad did you want to smack these parents in the head?

This book reminded me of the Little House books, in that they'd just start to get a home together, just get a little ahead financially, and BAM, something would go wrong. Stuff like that makes me really nervous. In the Little House books there was always a drought or crows eat the crops or whatever, but in this book that stupid stupid dad would get drunk again. Oh, he burned me up.

And when he stole the money! Oh! I just KNEW he would. I was over him way before the author was.

And that MOM! How self-centered was she? And immature? She had a teaching job and couldn't get out of bed! The whole thing made me tense.

What killed me was they were really smart people, the parents. They were just so flawed.

And yet? Most of the kids turned out okay. What do you make of that? I mean, we don't know if they're OKAY okay. They may be really emotionally screwed up. But they turned out to be successful, responsible adults.

How do you explain that? And what was your favorite part of the book? What part depressed you the most? Was there anyone who didn't like it? Because I was absolutely riveted to the whole thing.

Holy crap, White Castle hamburgers are delish.

Come back for book club 2nite!!

 
Several of you were whining asking for Henry photos, so I just got up and snapped one wherever he was. Okay, WHO has got a SNOOTY attitude? Look at his irritated ears. He's all, "AGAIN, with that camera? Whatev, heifer."

Anyway, I am not really posting right now, because I don't want you to forget to come back at 9 p.m. Eastern tonight for our book club, Mince Words with June, when we will discuss The Glass Castle. Remember to be eating White Castle hamburgers! Or hangabers, as my friend's child used to say and probably doesn't anymore cause she's like 17.

But one more thing! Well, two more things. First of all, we have comment of the week for this week and last, so go click Special of the Week, over there.

Also too, while I was writing this, the mail came and I got a check from a faithful reader (thanks!) because I'm randomly charging people to read this now. (I did work for her. Calm down.) Then also too, I got THIS STUFF in the mail from Faithful Reader Tanya! Click on the link to see her cool-pet-stuff website!

She sent me a poop bag for when Talu drops her chocolate Labs off at the pool or whatever, some adorable mice that Henry will destroy in the next hour, and LOOK AT THAT COLLAR!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who is my beautiful glamorous Pitty Pit Bull from Pitttown? Is it Lu? Oh! I love it!!!!

Anyway, see you tonight at 9 p.m. I will post my review of the book a few minutes early so you can be ready with your pithy responses at 9.

Maybe until it's time for Mince Words with June, I can sing you the theme from Ice Castles. Would you like that? Pleeeeeeeeeeeaaase don't let this feeling eeeeeeennnnnd, it's everything I ammmmmm, everything I waaaaant to beeeeee....

Give me your phone number and I will sing it right to you.

Another padhead for humiliation

Why do I look like I have a mustache when I have my disapproving mom expression? I swear I don't. I think mom's gigantic Sally Jesse Raphael glasses were casting a shadow. I hope.

And so 15,000 people don't ask, mom's shirt reads, "Another Skinhead for Peace." That's our good friend Gandhi, there, on the shirt. The only shirt I own that reads anything is my "Owls are Assholes" shirt. Which I don't even think is true, I am just being funny.

And the poodle mom is holding, which sadly resembles her June hair, belongs to Faithful Reader Hulk's daughter, Hulkette. I asked her if we could borrow it, and I told her I'd return it the next day. But then if you read my blog, you know I was sick sick sick on Sunday, with a giant migraine. I emailed Hulk and told him I'd be there Monday.

Monday rolled around and Hulk told Hulkette, "My friend June will be over later to return your stuffed dog."

Hulkette, who is like eight or something, said, "Well, actually, she said she was returning it Sunday."

Geez. Hulk asked, Who is she, Rain Man? Some people are so persnickety.

And that is all I have to say about my Halloween ensemble. The next thing I have to tell you is for girls only.

IF YOU ARE A BOY, STOP READING THIS. IT INVOLVES MAXI PADS.

YOU JUST LEFT, DIDN'T YOU?

So, I have never been to Sam's Club, because I don't cook and all I purchase at the store is coffee. However, my mother was going to Sam's Club while I was there and asked if I needed anything. Other than 10,734 toothpicks for Hulkette to count, I said I needed some pads. Some "come on over to my pad" feminine protection.

Who returns with nine million four hundred and sixty thousand maxi pads? I did not know all you can get at Sam's Club are bulk items. I mean, talk about bulk. I am set until menopause.

We needed an additional carry-on bag for me to store these things. Had the plane crashed, I had my own air bag. It was ridiculous.

At the airport in my hometown, sometimes they pull you aside and search your bags, and I was pleading with all that is merciful and holy that they would NOT INSPECT THAT BAG. It was like Cathy Rigby was flying or something.

Fortunately, they did not, and I checked the bag instead of carrying it. But then when I got to Greensboro? And it was rolling around the carousel? I wasn't sure if it was my bag or not. And because I can never keep anything to myself, I said to the old, ancient man behind me, "I think that's my bag, but I can't be sure. I'm gonna grab it and look inside."

Okay.

I had really kind of blocked how ridiculous it was in that bag. Remember how they kept opening that case in Pulp Fiction and you couldn't see what was in it but it kept glowing gold in their faces? I opened that bag and you have never seen so many yellow plastic squares in your life. It was like I stole the yellow brick road. It was like an explosion of peeps. We're talking yellow.

The old man, who had been so concerned about my bag situation, politely looked away. He probably wanted to dive onto the carousel and rotate away from me.

"Yep. That's my bag." I scurried out of there, hoping to never, ever see that poor man again.

When I came home and unpacked, Marvin was astonished. 'GEEZ! How many have you GOT in there?! It's like clowns coming out of a Volkswagen!" I didn't tell him there were more pads in my original suitcase.

At any rate, if you're ever over and need some feminine protection, I may have some.

Because what's more compelling than someone else's vacation pictures?

I have some photos from my trip back to Michigan, and I'm certain you're on the edge of your seat, there.

And by the way, when I'm on Facebook and I see someone's friend using the wrong "your," would it be okay if I just left a comment saying "YOU'RE!"? Or would that be obnoxious?

Let's stop pondering that moral quandary and stampede to my photographs, shall we?

Here is a recent picture of my Uncle Jim and me. They say you regress when you go home.

Okay, I'm like four, which would make my--let's admit it, really hot--Uncle Jim about 14. And what a twinkle toes I already was. Get me out on that dance floor! White much?

Anyway, the pictures I'm about to show you are all LEADING UP to the Halloween party, because my camera went dead just as soon as I got into my Mom costume. But fret not, because I dashed out and got a disposable camera, and am waiting for the pictures to get developed. Because apparently it's 1997.

Since all of you seemed to enjoy my Uncle Leo stories, here is a photo of my shiny forehead and my uncle. We tried three times, and each time he had a goofy expression. I do not know what to tell you. Uncle Leo would assure you he's cuter than this.

Here's the reason I have an Uncle Leo. No, these aren't his parents. That's my Aunt Kathy, who has a holiday sweater for every occasion, or perhaps this is an "I need an exterminator" sweater. Anyway, she married my Uncle Leo, then she divorced my Uncle Leo, then she married my Uncle Bill, who is a real trooper about the part where we kept Uncle Leo in the divorce. They are all friends. It is all very modern. We are so sophisticated. Smell us.

Case in point. Because what's more sophisticated than my stepfather walking like an Egyptian?

My mother has had a little work done. You can't tell, really.

Returning to the relatively normal people in my family, here is my Uncle Jim's grandson, Devon, and my mother's dog. I love how Gus is grinning up at Devon. Or preparing to eat his throat out. Whichever.

Here we all are watching those Twilight Zone episodes I told you about. Notice I have an orb on my chest. Am I dying of something?

Anyway. Halloween finally got here and mom and I went out to get our wigs to dress up as each other. Here is some coffee shop kid dressed as Waldo. So if you were wondering where he was, taa-daa.

We had no issue whatsoever finding the appropriate wigs. Mom was insulted that I got a man's wig to be her. I am insulted that I have an ax wound in the middle of my forehead, but what are you gonna do? Nice wrinkle. I'll be pouring salt in it later and serving crudities. Bring your appetite!

Before.

After. I told mom she looks like every woman in the South.

Naturally we had to put on our wigs and stampede over to Hulk's house, where he promptly put on the June wig. Look, I have an orb again, on my abdomen. I'm doomed. Also? Hulk could not look more like Sammy Hagar. And I could not look more like Jamie Lee Curtis. With an orb.

Annnnd scene. This is right about when the camera died. So you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see that actual Halloween partayy.

I was glad to get home and see my feline- and canine-Americans. When I was gone, Manly Marvin put in a new sink and got a little basket for the bathroom floor, and he decided we could store toilet paper in said basket.

Guess who saw less of a storage space and more of a smorgasbord?