Any time I catch him on the start or end of his walk he’ll tell me one of three stories about Lily that I have heard somewhere between 10 and 50 times already. I’m not sure if he realizes he keeps telling the same stories or if he even cares. I listen, quickly realizing which of the three it’s going to be and laugh where I did the first time. As the story unfolds I say, “oh wow” exactly where I should and where I did the first time I heard it, and eventually end with some sort of closer like, “Well, at least you’ll never need an exterminator” just like I do each time I hear it.

A few weeks ago I noticed him walk by without the dog. I opened my front door and asked, “Hey, Raymond, where’s Lily?” He stopped walking and sort of shouted, “Who?”

“Your dog, Lily.” I said.

“He looked away and at the ground and said, “Oh her. Eagle got her last weekend. She’s gone.”

This was not one of the three stories I had ever heard and if I had heard correctly it seemed an unbelievable one. “What?!” I yelped. “What do you mean an eagle got her?”

Raymond, still looking at the ground, said, “Yep. Was up in the mountains with her, like we do. Let her off the leash, like I do, and she never came back. I seen that eagle before. I know that’s what got her. So, Lily’s gone.”

All I could say was “wow” and “I’m so, so sorry, Raymond.”

He finally looked up at me and said, “Ya well, there’s a little puppy in Olympia I already picked out. Still suckling so I gotta wait a few more weeks. Same breed. Only difference is she’s got two black eyes.” (Lily had a big black spot over her left eye.)

“Well, that’s great. What are you going to name her?” I asked.

Raymond thought a minute. “Think I’ll name her the same. Call her Lily.”

I’m not going to lie, I thought this was a bit strange, but the whole story was strange and the poor guy just lost his little best friend to a huge bird so I immediately replied, “Well, that sounds like a great idea.”

He started to walk his long walk alone and I went back inside and on with my day.

~     ~     ~     ~     ~

Tonight, a few weeks after that conversation, I ran into Raymond again. He patted The Seal and told me the same two stories he always does about labs (one is about how great their shit is for growing flowers) and I asked, “So, when is the new pup coming home?”

Raymond smiled big and said, “Two weeks.”

I told him he needed to bring her by as soon as she showed up and asked if he was still going to name her Lily. He said, “Well, everyone wants to name her Jazz.” I replied that I thought that sounded like a great name.

He responded, “Ya well, I like Lily best.”

“Well, Raymond, it’s your dog, name her what you want.” I said.

Raymond nodded his head back and forth, “Well, there’s another person involved with this new dog and her name.” (I assumed correctly that he was talking about his ex wife.)

I asked, “Does this other person with a say happen to be a woman?”

He smiled and nodded.

“Well then” I said, “Good luck with your new dog, Jazz.”

::waiting::

Ok, caught up? Well, here is a golden little tidbit that fills in some long time blanks to that story. I have no idea how it came up now, but a few weeks ago Violet and I were reminiscing on all of the beautiful trouble the Seal has caused us and her shitting a shirt came up, of course. And that is when Violet’s confession came without warning or apology: “Oh ya, well she only ate your shirt because it was covered in bacon fat.

me: “Wait. What?”

V: “You mean that A-shirt of yours that she ate?”

me: “Yes, and then shit in the park, in front of all of those people. Yes. Wait. Has she shit other garments of mine that I don’t know about?”

V: “No, no. But didn’t I tell you? I mistook that A-shirt of yours for a rag and used it to clean the iron skillet. So, when I put it in the laundry it must have reeked of delicious bacon. So, of course she ate it.”

Me: (having finally learned, after years now, that picking your battles is key to long term love and so there was no need to question the obvious like, why did she use my shirt to clean a skillet in the first place? Why did she cover anything in bacon fat and then put it in the laundry? These sorts of things, you just let them go unless the moment is right.) “Ok. Well, that makes sense, I guess. As far as the Seal could tell it was a bacon shirt… that she ate and then shit in the park in front of all of those people. I get that. But it wasn’t a rag, love. It was my shirt.”

V: “Well yes, I realize that now.”

And really, it hasn’t happened since, thank god for the Seal’s poor bowels and for all of those visually scarred onlookers that morning, so who cares about one shirt of mine turned bacon-shirt turned shirt-like-dog-poo. And most importantly, as far as I’m concerned, the shit-a-shirt mystery is solved. Case closed.

(yes, this is a real-time photo of the tree the Seal and I were staring at.)

After a few hours of pruning, planting and weeding the yard we took a quick break.

As you can see, clearly the Seal has her eye on something. I assumed it was probably a squirrel or the neighbor’s cat until I realized…

It was MARCUS! The photo is very out of focus because I took it from quite a distance. Marcus use to be a pretty chill raccoon but ever since we introduced the Seal to this family he is a bit more on guard, and quite frankly, can be a little intimidating. I mean, we still love each other, don’t get me wrong, but these days we do so from a far.

(that is Marcus’s “I love you. Too bad about that dog” look. Love you too, buddy!)

After our break and our brief encounter with our favorite raccoon friend it was back to work. The Seal and I had a bunch of clippings and branches to chop up for compost and firewood before calling it a day. As you can see, not only is this dog some of the best company, but she is also a hard worker.

The Seal and I are on day 3 without Violet (still have 11 days to go) and so far we’re hanging in there. The sunshine helps and knowing Violet is on a much deserved vacation makes it all ok. Like I told Butchtastic Kyle, after spending over a year apart I like to think that two weeks should be rather doable. I am not saying my posts won’t begin to sound a bit pouty, as I much prefer my world with her in it, but I prefer over all things, that Violet is happy and having fun – and that she is.

So, happy Monday all. I hope you had a fabulous weekend!

I just got a comment from Lesbian Life Style on my last post informing me that I have been nominated for a Lezzy Award. I am still trying to figure out what this means exactly but in all of the mean time I have been asked to grab this graphic and link it to the award nominations and quite obviously, ask you, my fine flanneled friends, to also nominate me (top 3 blogs with the most nominations in a particular category by the 22nd go to “the final round.” Again, not totally sure what that means…)

I was told that I have been nominated under “humor” and “personal” and am assuming that is because there is no category for “unemployed faggot dyke who has a fish and raccoon as closest friends, with an entire blog about Cher, her dog and her girlfriend, that posts photos of animals balancing random items on their head and chooses to watch Golden Girls reruns on Friday nights while simultaneously tweeting everything Blanche says rather than hanging out with real-life people award.” I’m not saying that shouldn’t be considered as a category in the future but honestly 1. Hi. You lose. I win. and 2. How very, very sad.

So, if you feel so inclined to nominate (vote for) this blog, well, shucks and thank you in advance! (fyi: Thanking someone in advance is a popular sales technique that makes the “customer” feel like they are special and like they have already done something nice, causing them to feel a temporary obligation to do so… do not be fooled by this.)

The rules for this award are that I must remain a lesbian for the duration of this contest and that you can nominate (vote) once every 24 hours. So, if I don’t make you laugh or tell you anything personal or if you suspect that I might be straight- do not vote for me! But, in the spirit of competition, I promise to make out with Violet every day for the duration of the voting period, and, like always, I will continue to share with you the personal, self-deprecating moments that come my way.

Click the pink box to make me rich and famous (that’s what she said):

Last weekend Violet, the Seal and I decided to go on a last minute adventure. We ended up driving north for a few hours to the sweet little town of Bellingham. On our way back we stopped at Larrabee State Park. There was a short wooded trail that led to a small beach. Violet, the Seal and I explored our little desert island of a beach together, walking in the sand, climbing on rocks, looking at little tide pools with sea anemone, starfish, and little crabs. At one point, maybe a few hundred feet away, we watched a blue heron stalk and catch her lunch. She was huge and her graceful ability to dart her beak into the water and come back up with a fish was beautiful and had all three of us awe-struck.

We didn’t know we were going to stop here and I certainly wasn’t wearing the right shoes for it. I had on a pair of very water unfriendly leather loafers and because of that I was trying to be extra careful not to get them wet with salt water (It was really cold and we were walking on rock with bits of coral barnacle or I would have just taken them off.) After a few hours we decided we should get going and began walking back up the beach. Every step I took my foot would sink in a puddle of soggy sand and after several steps my feet were getting quite wet. My mind thought, “I am going UP the beach, AWAY from the ocean, there won’t be any water this next step.” But sure enough, somehow every step I took landed me in water. I became more and more focused on my feet and where I was going to step next but I didn’t want to stop moving because that would make my feet sink even further into the wet sand. Eventually, I started to try and hop quickly, hoping this next time my feet would find dry land. But still, with every step my foot found water.

Finally, Violet said, “jesse, stop! Just stop and look at the big picture here.” And so, quite frustrated and soggy footed, I stopped and took my focused attention off of my two wet feet and looked all around to see where I was in the scheme of things. Because I had only been focusing on my feet and nothing else I hadn’t noticed that I was walking right up the path of a shallow but wide stream of water that was flowing from the hillside into the ocean. Three or four steps to either side was an entire beach of dry sand. So, now that I had seen the whole beach compared to where I was exactly I hopped three times to the right and that was that. Dryland.

So, to keep on with my offlineness this might well be a record short post from yours truly. Happy Friday to all.

Now, before I announce the winners (because several ideas made up my gift) I just want to reiterate, until you are utterly annoyed with my gratitude, how grateful I am to everyone that participated and how seriously impressed I am with all of you. Like, really, really impressed. Oh, and I will continue to use bits and pieces of all of these amazing ideas for future gifts. So, thank you in advance for the stock of super-fabulous-and-romantic gift ideas.

Ok, here we go: This year, for Christmas, I gave Violet a photo album with every single photo I could find that had just the two of us in it. I dug through the house and my computer for photos, printed and gathered them all and made it as chronological as my memory serves. I found a good looking photo album with a ton of pages to leave room for pictures to come. If you aren’t Violet or me it might not be a very interesting gift to look through, but for us, it is a way to look back at all of the adventures we have been on together. And right smack in the middle of the album, all of a sudden, a lot of the photos have this really cute black dog in them. And then there were three…

Ready!?! (drum roll please)… The winners are: (in order of comments)

• ~k

• zach

• fg (for now)

• Amber

• Saintchick (ok, if you are really going back to that post and reading the comments you might notice that Saintchick’s idea didn’t really have much to do with this gift, but she wanted it bad- so a Cherday shout out she shall get.)

So, ~k, zach, fg, and Amber- send in (email me) your requests! And, again and again and again, thanks to all of you creative geniuses! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

(Coming up on jljj: Stay tuned for verbose rants about serious Holiday family stresses, sudden snow storms to trap me in a car with key stress makers, Christmas day sunburns and how two margaritas, a text from Violet and a new car with front weel drive saved my sanity…)

So, ok, holy cow, to say the very least. What a vacation trip this little holiday break has been. I don’t have much to say yet (can you even believe that?!?) as I have been biting my tongue here and there for so many days now that maybe I’ve lost my touch a bit? Or maybe I am just so damn tired and worn down and out that the verbose in me has crashed into a deep sleep? This I know- I can’t wait to get back to Seattle with my little family, sit on my couch and stare at all of the laundry and everything else that needs attention that won’t get any for a few days, at least.

This holiday venture has been wonderful in parts and hard and stressful and emotional and hard and hard and hard, just like everyone, in all of our different ways, right? I know. But I so look forward to being home, to waking up with JUST Violet, and ONLY the Seal somewhere near by. I look forward to an extended general state of boringness.

My little family, Violet, the Seal and myself, intend on leaving tomorrow morning but, but, but, who-the-&*@#-ever-with-serious-weather-power-who-very-obviously-hates-me cried his vengeful tears and this city that I am in, all of a sudden, out of the blue, with NO warning or prediction what so ever, has been covered in 8 inches of snow and ice. So now, obviously, who knows where I’ll be tomorrow night now. Have I mentioned that I am exhausted?

This-totally-CRAZY-out-of-the-blue-that-no-one-in-the-whole-world-or-outer-universe-knew-was-coming snow storm, that had me stuck in the car, attempting to drive with the main goal of not dying for what should have been 30 minutes turned 5 hours, with all of the main family stressers in my life in tow, ALL DAMN DAY AND NIGHT, might hold us back one more day. Of course, right. Fine. Whatever.

Point is… eh, I don’t have one. Well, here’s a point: I have made it thus far which leads me to a strong belief that I will make it, in general. And, oh yes, hi little house of jljj, I’ve missed all of you.

What you see here is a classic: A boy and her dog enjoying a bit of cheese without all the messy use of utensils… or anyone around to get totally pissed off that I am taking huge bites of cheese right off the block and sharing them with the dog. See? Classic.

And now it is mid-afternoon and the Seal and I have done nothing to note. I gave the Seal a bit more breakfast than usual, comfort kibble if you will, and then I gave her a bone to chew out the nervousness with. I had beef stew and ice cream for breakfast and may or may not have that again for lunch. Pizza and beer for dinner, for sure. There are dishes in the sink that will stay there a bit longer than usual and I am still in pajamas. I am trying to make the most of things, right off the bat, to cover the anxiety I can’t shake about Violet’s trip. I know, I know, I know, it will all go splendidly and she will have a ton of great stories, and I am very excited for her. I just look forward to the part where she is back, safe and sound, and complaining about how messy the kitchen is.

On a different note, thank you kind readers, for all of the very sweet emails and comments regarding my sweet little fish friend. If there was an award for Most Fabulous Blog Readers, this blog would win for sure.