The Bloggess

So in the morning we leave for our road trip and you can follow it on instagram but before we left I had to post this video of Dorothy Barker so that I can watch it on repeat when I miss her.

For medicinal purposes. (See blog for details.)

A post shared by Jenny Lawson (@thebloggess) on Jul 22, 2017 at 9:11pm PDT

The backstory: Whenever Victor calls me on the phone Dorothy Barker will do this wolf-like howl and will not stop until I answer the call.  She only does this for his ring tone and as soon as I answer it she immediately stops and looks very proud of herself.  If I intentionally ignore it she will crawl up into my lap and howl in my face like, “YOU HAVE A CALL, LADY.”  I suspect Victor taught her to do this.

PS. Is it just me or does her first howl sound like she saying: “I LOVE MY MAMA”?  Or maybe “I WANT PINATAS”.  Hard to tell.

PS. I’ll still be posting here while I’m gone.  Because I’m a professional.  Sort of.

This needs a caption.

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Next week we’re going on a road trip from Washington to Colorado so we hired a pet-sitter to watch the cats and Lizard Bordan and keep us from being robbed but we weren’t sure if we’d be able to meet with her personally before we left so I decided to write her a letter to leave on the table just in case, and it quickly devolved into insanity because I was drinking.

Dear pet sitter.

Welcome to our house.  We have 42 cats. They are JJ, Squirts, Little Tommy, Diarrhea Paul, Tater and the rest are named after all of the former members of Menudo.   Tater is missing his back legs (he came that way) but we made him peg legs out of old chicken bones. You can hear him coming unless he’s on carpet. Then he’ll sneak up on you. Unless he’s eaten the chicken legs.  Then you have to get new ones and reattach, as usual.

I know you’re technically a “pet sitter” but we always leave a sandwich out for the ghost of Michael Jackson. If you don’t mind, I mean. Also, please sing to the soul of my Aunt Susan. She is not at peace. We captured her soul in a box under the stairs but she’s tenacious. She might possess you. Do not listen if she starts talking to you.  Maybe consider saying Lord’s Prayer and burning some sage before you leave so her spirit doesn’t follow you home. Up to you.  I don’t want to tell you how to do your job. You’re the professional. 

The cats are soothed by a daily live dance show. Nothing elaborate. Just gyrate.  It doesn’t have to be professional. Do not play music though because it bothers them. If you can’t dance without music then hum the Star Spangled Banner. That’s what we do. If they still seem irritated after your dance it might be Aunt Susan doing a mocking dance behind you.  Cats are sensitive to angry spirits and sarcastic dance.  Just scream “QUIT IT, SUSAN.  THIS IS WHY YOU HAVE TO LIVE IN A BOX” and start again.

When entering and leaving our home please give the finger to our neighbor, Randy. He’s a real asshole and we want him to know that other people are catching on. Maybe yell, “WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID, RANDY.”  Feel free to ad-lib.  

If the cats pee on the floor please make them feel better about it by peeing on the floor next to them. Then clean it up immediately and shame yourself. They’ll understand what you’re doing. 

Do not turn on any lights when you visit at night.  It disturbs the bats.

Sometimes there are bats.

We did have a viper but you don’t have to feed it because it disappeared a few months ago. Maybe shuffle your feet across the floor like you do around stingrays so he knows you’re coming and you won’t step directly on him.  He would probably hate that.

Also, I don’t want to tell you what to do, but maybe make us a cake for the day we come back? Just as a gift. Cakes are delicious. Some of us are on a diet so maybe half no-carb and the other half chocolate wedding cake.

If you could breed the cats while we’re gone that would be fine. But don’t breed them with animals that aren’t cats. We don’t want to come home to a griffin or a centaur. This isn’t the Island of Doctor Moreau. This is our home. Also, don’t let Susan name any newborns. That’s our job and she is awful at it. That’s how we got Diarrhea Paul.  (Who, as you will see, is accurately named but it’s a bit too on-the-nose.  We don’t need reminding, Susan.)

You must feed the colony of raccoons who live under the porch by hand. Do NOT feed the bad ones. You’ll know which ones the bad ones are. Trust me. Do not get human blood on the porch. It attracts stuff.  Don’t feed the stuff.

You said you’d also take care of plants. Dont get them wet.  Wait, no, that’s gremlins.  Do get them wet.  But not too wet.  They can’t swim. 

Please do not put pajamas on the cats until after 8pm. It messes up their sleeping schedule. They’ll act like this is all new but I assure you it’s not.  Their Instagram accounts should be updated each day.  Please review the last 3 years of posts so that you can understand and imitate each of their personal voices.  If you don’t get 3 likes per picture you’re doing it wrong.  If you get more than 11 likes on a picture please note whatever you’re doing because that is a record.

If we die while on vacation you become the legal guardian of all of our animals and also Aunt Susan.  You can’t have the bats though.  No one owns bats.

Hugs,

me

PS. Inflatable unicorn horns are under the sink if needed.

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Okay.  Last week I told you that we have lawn gerbils and then a few days later it turned out we maybe had fairies but there have been more developments and those developments are that squirrels are assholes and I adopted an owl.  Sort of.

Basically I realized that whatever it was I saw in the lawn was too small to stay inside the live traps and it would just eat the peanut butter and squeeze out of the cage so I bought new, smaller traps and this happened:

I spent yesterday literally building a better rat trap only to watch this fucker pull this trap 5 feet into the bushes, jump on it, pry the back off, pull out the peanut butter and now HE'S FUCKING FLOSSING WITH THE HANDLE HE BROKE OFF.

A post shared by Jenny Lawson (@thebloggess) on Jul 16, 2017 at 12:40pm PDT

And I’ve reset the traps, but this morning when I came out I found that Squirrelly Temple had ripped off the back of the trap AND CARRIED IT AWAY WITH HER.  So basically the squirrel converted the trap into a squirrel feeding system and she keeps glaring at me like,  “Why haven’t you refilled this shit?  IT IS EXHAUSTING STEALING FROM YOU” and then Victor went outside and fed it peanuts and I was like, “THAT IS SO IRRESPONSIBLE” and he was all, “But she’s hungry” and I’m pretty sure we just switched bodies.

I haven’t seen the lawn gerbils/rats/fairies/voles again but I assume they’re still there so I found a big plastic owl at the store that’s supposed to scare away rodents and Victor was like, “We’re not buying big owl” and I was like, “Well, we have to now because you just named it.  Big Al.”  And he was like, “I said ‘big owl‘ and I said, “Well good, because that a terrible name.  Waste of an owl, really.  We should name it Hootie.  Or Weird Owl.  Oh!  OWLEXANDER HAMILTON.”

So we brought Owlexander Hamilton home and I felt bad about leaving him outside at night and Victor was like, “WHY IS A PLASTIC OWL IN OUR BED?” and I explained that the directions say: “must be moved to different locations for maximum efficiency” and Victor glared at me so I claimed innocence and told him the owl probably did it himself.  “He’s like Hootini.” And Victor just shook his head and said, “I’m talon you, this has to stop.”  And that’s exactly why we’re still married.

Hoot hoot, motherfucker.

Did you read yesterday’s post about lawn gerbils?  If not, go read that and then come back.  We’ll wait.

Okay, so I’m pretty sure someone is fucking with me but Victor and Hailey are both out of town and no one else here has thumbs (except Ferris Mewler who was born with too many fingers but only uses them to turn on sinks and walk away like an asshole).

So, I got a live trap yesterday and baited it with peanut butter to catch whatever it was I saw and the trap has gone off twice and some of the peanut butter is gone but there’s nothing in the trap so I was like, my lawn gerbils are also ghosts, obviously.  But then people on twitter were like, “The rat probably got out because rats can squeeze through crazy tiny holes and here’s your new phobia” so I went online to order another trap but I reset the old one because why not, but then I just went to check it and it was still open and unsprung BUT THERE WAS SOMETHING IN IT.  Not an alive something.

A small, shiny star.  Inside the trap.

And I wanted to get it out because why is it even there and how did someone put it there without setting off the trap but also I didn’t want to touch it because what if the rats left it and wiped hantavirus all over it to pay me back for trying to evict them?  So I went to look for gloves but all I could find were opera gloves from an old halloween costume, so I’m basically dressed up super fancy to put my hand in a rat trap that has now possibly been hacked to catch me.  And it’s some sort of plastic, shiny star (with a hole in back like it should be on a bracelet) and I got one single, unfocused photo of it before it slipped out of my fingers and dropped into the succulent bushes that the rats were hiding in.  So I’m using a stick to try to move the plants to find the star and the whole time I’m thinking, “What if this was their plan all along?  What if they drag me down to their lair and this is where all the missing people and socks go?” but I couldn’t find the star or the ghost rats and it’s really hot so I gave up.

So now I’m wondering if it was the lawn gerbils paying me for the free peanut butter?  Or is it fairies?  And if so, is that a threat?  And since I just threw it in the bushes rather than keeping it have I insulted them again?  Or was it a message from the rats like, “Gold star for effort, idiot.  Except, you suck at this so here’s a silver star instead.”  Can rats be sarcastic?

I don’t even have an ending for this.  I’m so confused.

I realize this is an awful photo but in my defense, it’s hard to take a good picture when you’re wearing slippery opera gloves and holding the bait that fairies might be using to curse you.

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You guys.  Just…NO.  Okay, I started this on twitter a few minutes ago but it got too long so I’m moving it here.  Twitter is backward so go to the bottom of the image and read upward until you’re caught up.  I’ll meet you at the bottom.

So of course Victor is out of town because that’s what happens when a plague of rats strikes so I called our exterminator and was like, “I think I have lawn gerbils?” and I described them and she was like, “Girl, you got rats” and I was like, “THIS NEVER HAPPENED WHEN OBAMA WAS PRESIDENT” and she was all, “Um…ma’am?” and I apologized and told her I had a lot of other things going on and she was like, “Whatever, crazy” but in a nice way.

So she said that they could help but that it’s hard for them to catch rats outside and that I might want to try it myself with rat traps and I was like, “But I don’t want to kill them.  Can’t you just live trap them?” and she was like, “For rats?  No.  We do that for squirrels and skunks and such, but we’re not going to trap and relocate rats.  That’s just going to cause problems for someone else” and that’s true but it would create more business for them although in a shitty way, and I applaud them for being ethical but still wish they could remove these guys without hurting them.  Then she told me that there was a poison that dehydrates the rats and makes them leave to look for creeks, but they’re in a bush right next to the pool so basically I’d have a lot of plague rats swimming in my pool and frankly that seems worse for everyone.

Also, she was like, “Do you have any birdseed out there, or nuts that are attracting them?” and that seemed like victim blaming but I explained that I didn’t and she explained that THEY EAT DOG POOP.  WTF.  And that both super grossed me out and made me really reconsider luring them inside to train them and put circus clothes on them because ew, but also it seems sort of beneficial?  Like when you find a snake in your yard and you don’t kill it because it eats worse snakes?  So I asked the lady if I could just let them stay and she was like, “NOOOO.  THEY WILL GET IN YOUR HOUSE AND CHEW UP YOUR WIRES,” but probably not if I give them a dollhouse filled with food on the back porch and I could hear the lady shaking her head and she was like, “Listen. Just get some traps and see if you can catch them.  For some reason rats really like cherry starbursts” and I was all, “I REALLY LIKE CHERRY STARBURSTS” and they just got even more human to me.  But then I remembered that I actually like strawberry starbursts and the cherry ones taste like poison, so then it was less awful, but then I thought that if I did make friends with the rats they could eat all my cherry starbursts.  You can see my predicament.

PS.  The pest control lady could not see my predicament.  I assume because she doesn’t have my imagination or my access to tiny rat-sized clothing.

PPS.  This sucks.

PPPS.  This post brought to you by Starburst!  Kidding.  Don’t sue me, Starburst. The rats started this.  Not me.

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Yesterday I was driving through the Fort Davis Mountains after dropping Hailey off at sleep away camp and I was NOT crying even though I wanted to because 2 weeks is a long time and stop judging me so I decided to distract myself so I was loudly belting out Amy Winehouse’s Valerie when suddenly two enormous turkey vultures decided they hated me and dive-bombed my car and then I screamed, “WTF” and I started going faster because birds were attacking me and then I got pulled over and had to explain to the police officer that yes, I was speeding but I had a good reason because birds, and the cop was like, “Well, that’s new” but then he saw the claw mark on my roof and I offered him an umbrella to keep the vultures from pecking out his eyes but then suddenly the vultures were gone because of course they fucking were but I think I gave the cop a headache because after he was very certain I was sober he decided to let me off with a warning because I’m not sure he wanted to meet me again in traffic court.

Well, fuck. #roadtrip

A post shared by Jenny Lawson (@thebloggess) on Jul 9, 2017 at 2:15pm PDT

And then I got back home last night and today I was taking the garbage out through the garage but the door locked behind me and Victor is out of town so the only people inside were cats who were very unhelpful and I didn’t have my phone to call anyone so I tried the windows but none were open and the cats were just looking at me like I was insane and then I fell into the bushes and then the security guard drove up and was like, “Ma’am?  Can I help you?”  And also I was barefoot and wearing cat pajamas.  Did I mention that?  And I couldn’t prove that I lived there because all I had was a bag of trash and I was like, “I know what this looks like but why would I bring trash to break into a house?” and he sort of stared at me, probably because actually that’s a great way to break into a house because you look like you’re totally not a prowler and you can fill your trash bag with valuables.  Luckily though the guard recognized me because I’m the lady who’s always yelling at those swans outside my house and he offered to call a locksmith but then I remembered that the back door was unlocked and then I DIDN’T GET ARRESTED FOR TWO DAYS IN A ROW.

WIN.

This isn’t a real post.  It’s a request.  Tomorrow I drive Hailey to the sleep-away camp she’s gone to every year since she was 9, where she’ll ride horses and work on a ranch with no internet or tv or air conditioning or phones and I will wonder whether she was adopted because that sounds like the 7th circle of hell to me but she adores it.  I, on the other hand, need constant distraction so that means that we need something to listen to for 6 hours tomorrow and also something that will keep me awake for the 6 hours driving back the next day.  PLEASE HELP.

Hailey and I are both big fans of podcasts but we’re also open to good audiobooks that won’t put us to sleep.  Fascination nonfiction is a plus.  (I’m thinking of Packing For Mars by Mary Roach but I’ve read it 3 times so I’m up for something new.)  We’ve already binged This American Life, Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, Lore, Criminal, The Grift, Invisibilia, Reply All, Stuff You Missed In History Class, NightVale, Within the Wires, You Must Remember This, 99% Invisible, Revisionist History and Thrilling Adventure Hour.  Give me suggestions.

Our favorites podcasts are less conversational and more “tell me a story”.  Dark is a plus.  Sex is not.  I mean, for the ride down.  For the ride back I’ll be alone because Victor is working so I’m fine with sex.  Podcasts that refer to sex, I mean.  I’m not fine with sex without Victor.  YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.  Also, I’ve already binged My Favorite Murder, My Dad Wrote a Porno, 2 Dope Queens, Serial, S-Town, Ear Hustle, Mortified, True Crime Garage and Up and Vanished.  (These are all excellent suggestions, btw, and you should listen to them if you haven’t already.  I’d link to each of them but I’m still trying to fit a half of a months worth of clothes and safety equipment into one trunk and it’s not working.)

What’s the perfect road trip listen?

Thanks, y’all.

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me: Dude.  We’ve been married 21 years today.  Our marriage is old enough to drink.

Victor: Or do crack.

me: I don’t think there’s a legal age for that.

Victor: 21 years ago this minute my father told me that he had tickets to leave the country if I wanted to bail out before the wedding.

me:  21 years ago this minute my aunt was telling me it wasn’t too late to jump in the car and just drive to Mexico.

Victor:  What if we’d both taken them up on it and then accidentally ended up in the same town running away from each other?

me:  I think we just wrote a 90’s romantic comedy.

Victor: And it only took us 21 years.

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Remember last week then I asked where we should go on vacation and you gave me a thousand great suggestions that made me realize I’ve pretty much never really been anywhere?  Well, we decided to go on a road trip and see stuff we’ve never seen before.  Some of it normal stuff that everyone should see but more importantly, it’s a lot of weird-ass stuff you find on the way.

People have different ideas of what constitutes weird so for example I will use The Museum of Two-Headed Things that I recently discovered near my house, which was filled with much fewer two-headed things you’d expect (two, if you include the one hidden in a wooden box on the floor under bundles of human hair) and also gems like this:

Basically some lady found a dead squirrel in her attic in the 70’s and her kids were like, “Yeah.  That’s nightmare trash” and she was like, “BUT IF I PUT IT IN A GLASS BOX IT’S ART” and they were like, “Mom, this is how hoarders start” and then (28 years later) she was all, “FINE.  I’M DONATING MR. SINEWS TO A MUSEUM” and they probably just rolled their eyes at each other because what museum is going to happily take a dead 70’s attic rat?  And the answer is THIS ONE and I’m pretty sure I just found the place to leave all my weird taxidermy to when I die.

And my dead pets will not be alone because they already have jewels like this one:

So this summer we’ll be driving from Seattle to Denver.  (With stops in Butte, Jackson Hole, and Rawlins.)  We’re going to see Yellow Stone and the Grand Teton and the Rocky Mountains like normal people, but we’re also going to try to do stuff like break into a wallaby farm, and ghost hunt in haunted hotels and abandoned prisons, and visit a 90 foot tall Virgin Mary.  We’ve never explored these areas so if you have any suggestions (or access to wallaby farms, baby otters or other ridiculousness) on this route PLEASE LET ME KNOW.

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