June

What a doozie of a month. It rip-roared right past me. The month started with riots and protests and there Brett and I were, dining on King Street with Jeff, obliviously munching away while angry mobs stormed in our direction. We paid and left and stepped off King Street and back to our cars just as the rage of injustice took out it's anger on the shops and restaurants we'd just walked by. I saw a photo the next morning of exactly where I was sitting in a restaurant and the chairs were over-turned and the table covered in glass from the broken window it sits next to. Brett and I felt very Mr. Magoo about it all. 

Oh lets see there were dog walks and dock time and I've become enthralled with the color of the hydrangeas this year. All over town they are pink and purple. Usually they are blue. And I love the blue ones but, for those of you that don't know, hydrangeas get their color from the contents of their soil. (It's the pH levels that matter.) So the hydrangeas have me wondering what went on to create a uniform color palate all over town for this boisterous bounty of beautiful blooms. I don't consider myself very girly (am I kidding myself?) but I gasped when I saw these. 

We celebrated Dad's birthday by creating the tackiest dining space we could and ordering his favorite East Asian food from a spicy restaurant downtown. We ate carrot cake and gave him the biggest air-fryer in all the land. We really labored over how to make his day special during a time when you can't go out in public and the birthday boy in question has to wear a big brace and cannot do much more than sit or stand. We accepted that tacky decor was the most celebratory thing we could do. 

Months ago, I found a lump on Grace's tail. I felt around and parted her fur to find what looked like a human molar growing from the scrawny bone that supports so bushy a tail. Dr. Eisenhauer and P.A. Lu decided we'd watch it awhile and then reassess. It never seemed to bother her until earlier this month when she began gnawing on it and ripping the fur out to get to it. Brett took her to the vet who told us it's an infected cyst and it's likely they'll have to amputate her tail. 

In a last ditch effort they put her on three weeks of antibiotics but told us to call on day two to determine if we thought they were working. There was no time to dilly-dally. We were certain we would see no improvement after only two days so we began a vigil for the tail. So bushy and feminine.

Grace was most bothered by the Cone of Shame and resorted to head-butting the ground to cause the plastic to crack and splinter and at night she'd drag it along furniture to ensure our sleep was as disrupted as hers. Shockingly, on day two the mutant tooth already looked better so we called the vet and told them to power down their miter saw. Grace went for a check up last week and the diagnosis is neutral. She can keep the tail as long as the cyst stays uninfected. This may or may not happen. 

Meanwhile we took Pippa on her first kayaking adventure and she was a nervous wreck. We left Grace at home because her tail has to stay dry and we thought it was the perfect time to introduce Pip to the wonderful world of water-crafts. She did not like balancing on slippery plastic and she really didn't like when Brett and I would drift apart in our separate kayaks. She would whine and cry as I paddled ahead so she'd leap and tumble from the bow of Brett's kayak and swim a hurried dog paddle over to mine where I would roll her in by the straps of her neon orange life vest. She's shake off, lick my face to assure me and then look over at Brett 10 feet away. Then she'd cry and jump out all over again. So we pulled our kayaks together and she tiptoed from one to the other, wheezing and darting her eyes. We tried to distract her with fetching a tennis ball and the bumps and bruises were innumerable. She was spastic and full of nervous energy. We gave up on this torture when she tried to jump from a kayak to the dock and landed her fleshy soft belly on it's rough wooden corner and let out a little squeal. 

The next morning she woke up with one eye swollen shut and we decided our dogs are money pits. (Money Pip). The eye opened later that morning with no need for medical intervention and Pip still went about her day, full-throttle and ready for anything... except kayaking.

We had visits with Jeff and his squishy cat, and visits with Ellen and her squishy daughter. Liv let out her first cackle when Lee choked on water and now she's withholding that melodic sound on the grounds of stubbornness, so we're all dancing around and fake coughing just to try to hear it again. 

Just before Father's Day, Grandpa Bob went off to go find Grandma so they could eat ice cream and get caught up. We loved on Papa Union and celebrated Lee's first father's day while he grinned from ear to ear.  I also snuck in for the tail end of the Eisenhauer men-folk Father's day fishing adventure. Look at these strapping fellas. (Julian was not interested in being photographed.)

Brett and I continue to work from home together which means he works semi-regular hours and I flounder around and fire off a few emails and tend to the Spite Garden and nap prodigiously. The thing is, I can't get my work done when he's home. I don't know why! I used to have a 9-2pm computer job here at home but between his podcasts, conference calls, and stress-inducing work tunes, I just can't stay in the "office" with him and get my work done. I scramble in and out when he's distracted and send proposals and invoices and floral orders and when my jolly giant gets back to work I scamper off like a rat in the subway. And I don't want him to move. Don't you dare go back to work or move your desk out of the sunny room. I LOVE having him here. So I haven't told him how disruptive he is. I love him too much. 

We have also been sticking to our workout plans which developed right along with the stay-at-home orders. Brett used to go to the gym on his lunch break. Now he works out in the evenings in our garage like a trailer park person. He leaps about and grunts and picks things up. He has created a home-gym in there and it's upped the ante. Meanwhile, I've continued doing my assigned exercises for my weenie core and flat fanny and I do this in the living room with privacy and air-conditioning. Admittedly, I've gotten into the spirit of things have begun to compete with Brett. He wins arm and leg competitions, but my giggle muscles have him beat. I can out-ab workout the biggest person I know and I'll never stop bragging. 

On the topic of trailer-park people, we received a hammock as a wedding gift because I crappin love everything about a hammock-filled lifestyle. For a year and a half I've needed Brett's assistance to hang the hammock. Between you and me, I've actually just been waiting for Brett to hang it because I don't know about the sinches and wenches or whatever you use to keep it dangling. And anytime I asked (which, in his defense, hasn't been frequently) Brett would politely redirect me to another activity. Finally I confronted him.

"Bubb, why won't you hang the hammock?"

"Lu, I don't want that in the yard, They're redneck-ish!"

"What?"

"Yeah. We may as well put your car on blocks and get a trampoline!"

I laughed and laughed at the Big Guy and then sent him to work. 

Turns out we don't have an ideal hanging location. We'll keep working on it. 

I worked on my stories, had a single wedding to decorate, planted some goodies in the backyard and finally finished painting Brett's front steps. And right at the end of the month we celebrated my 30th birthday.